CNS STORY: With capital in ruins, northern Haiti struggles

HAITI-NORTH Feb-10-2010 (690 words) xxxi

With capital in ruins, northern Haiti struggles

By David Agren
Catholic News Service

MILOT, Haiti (CNS) -- Fresnel Vildor studied civil engineering in Port-au-Prince until the Jan. 12 earthquake leveled his private university. His "well-built" home withstood the magnitude 7 quake, but he was left with no place to study, no food, no water and no money.

After five desperate days and no signs of imminent improvement in Port-au-Prince, he boarded a bus with more than 100 other passengers for a 24-hour trip -- nearly three-times the usual duration -- to his hometown, Milot, in northern Haiti.

Vildor arrived with nothing more than the clothes on his back, but he considered himself lucky: He was able to move in with his parents and five siblings.

"For me, things are OK," Vildor said. "Some friends in Port-au-Prince that had their businesses and houses destroyed; they're in tough shape."

Vildor was among the masses fleeing Port-au-Prince for the outlying provinces in the days and weeks after the earthquake that destroyed much of the Haitian capital.

The earthquake left little damage in northern Haiti, but prompted an influx of injured, homeless and unemployed former residents of Port-au-Prince, along with those who have family ties to the region.

That influx has strained scant resources and incomes in a part of the country that has long been neglected by the central government and has been heavily dependent on Port-au-Prince to provide both public- and private-sector services.

"We have many people coming from Port-au-Prince to our diocese ... and we don't know how long they will stay," Bishop Chibly Langlois of Fort Liberte told Catholic News Service.

How long those people stay depends on the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince, a city that has so dominated national life that trips to the capital are necessary to carry out routine bureaucratic procedures such as obtaining a passport.

Before the earthquake, Port-au-Prince absorbed masses of impoverished Haitians who left the outlying provinces in search of better economic opportunities; it also attracted thousands of students and fortune seekers.

Now, many of those same people are returning home en masse. The exact size of the influx and the impact on northern Haiti has been hard to gauge, however.

Jean-Bernard Simonnet, owner of Cormier Plage resort, said the influx of people and the collapse of the capital has led to shortages of some food items and fuel and complicated routine business procedures, such as banking, in the north. Prices for many items have increased, and the already high unemployment rate is expected to skyrocket, he said.

Bishop Langlois said shortages of food already were "the big problem" in his diocese before the earthquake; international aid programs had been responsible for feeding many of the hungry in northern Haiti. The earthquake, he said, only worsened the food situation.

"For some families, they don't have the ability to welcome so many people and now they have to give them food," Bishop Langlois said.

Father Joachim Roboam Anantua, a parish priest in Milot, described a similar situation in his community. He said local Caritas chapters had recently received additional food aid to distribute from Catholic dioceses in the Dominican Republic and international aid organizations, "but it's still not enough."

"We need more food, more clothes, more materials of any kind," he said.

With the central government in ruins and much of the international relief efforts focused on Port-au-Prince, Father Roboam said family has become a safety net for millions of Haitians.

"Families are generous ... they share what they have," Father Roboam said. "Even if the house is small, they always find a place to put someone affected by the catastrophe."

Nicolas Antoine, who works as a tour guide in Milot, said his family took in a relative from Port-au-Prince.

"There's the same amount of food, but now there's an extra person," he said.

Vildor, the engineering student, said food has not been an issue for his family. But he, like many Haitians, said his life is on hold as he awaits news if private universities will reopen, allowing him to complete the single semester remaining in his engineering studies.

"It doesn't depend on me," he said. "It depends on the owner of the university."

END

Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250