May 27, 2004
Storms kill hundreds in Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Christian Aid (UK)

Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands left homeless as floods and mudslides batter Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands left homeless as floods and mudslides batter Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Torrential rain fell for two weeks, swelling rivers and saturating the land. Two rivers have broken their banks in the small town of Jimaní, on the Dominican side of the border.

Christian Aid's representative in Haiti, Helen Spraos, had hoped to travel to the south of the country to assess the damage, but she could not go because the roads are impassable.

Two of Christian Aid's partners - the Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons in Haiti and the Jesuit Refugee Service in the Dominican Republic - have been in the area to assess the damage.

Estimates of fatalities range between 130 and 500. Jimaní's morgue is overflowing and bodies are being buried in mass graves to prevent the spread of disease.

Emergency workers in the Dominican Republic say that more than 13,000 people have been made homeless. More rain is forecast.

The affected areas lie along the border, where living conditions for both Haitians and Dominicans were difficult even before the storms struck. Dominican traders with makeshift market stalls try to scrape a living by selling goods on the border.

Farm workers go from plantation to plantation, desperately seeking work. But crops have been washed away. Many Dominicans have lost their livelihoods, their homes and now their lives.

Hundreds of Haitians cross the border every day to chop down trees for firewood. Some of them have no alternative: they have no jobs and no sources of income. Others come from big businesses, exploiting a lucrative trade in charcoal production.

But the cutting down of trees to produce charcoal has shocking effects. When there is heavy rain, the water can no longer be absorbed, cascading down hillsides and sweeping away everything in its path, including homes.

A few months ago political unrest resulted in the overthrow of President Aristide and the arrival of foreign troops to keep the peace. Speaking from Port au Prince, Helen Spraos, said: 'This is putting a tremendous strain on Haitian people, when the country has already taken a battering during the recent political upheaval.'

And, while the political troubles are on the way to being smoothed out, this is just the beginning of the rainy season.

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