15 years after Haiti's earthquake: Struggling to find hope

By James Blears 

On January 12th 2010, a 7-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti`s fragile housing and infrastructure, killing an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand Haitians.  One hundred and two UN Peace Keepers also died as their Headquarters in Port Au Prince imploded and crumbled as the shock waves crushed it. 

Now, all of these years later, another peacekeeping contingent, led by 400 Kenyan Police is back in Haiti. Still, although their security presence is welcome, it`s a teardrop in the lawlessness and disorder maelstrom of chaos, which blights the Western Hemisphere`s poorest nation. The infamous street gangs which have formed an insidious alliance, control most of the Capital Port Au Prince and the surrounding hinterland. France and the United States are providing funds and equipment but no police or troops to stem or dam a tidal wave of crime and murder. 

Poverty, criminality, violence, displacement

The UN`s Human Rights Office reports that 5,600 people were murdered last year, 2,200 were wounded, 1,500 were kidnapped and thousands have fled the violence. In the last year, the neighbouring Dominican Republic expelled more than 200,000 Haitian migrants and is building a border fence to divide the island of Hispaniola, which the two nations are supposed to share. 

The situation descended into chaos and anarchy, following the assassination of Haiti`s 43rd President Jovenal Moise on July 7th 2021 by a group of 28 mercenaries, mostly from Colombia. Haiti`s bleakest epoch was from 1957 to 1971 when it was ruled with the iron fist, of ruthless dictator Francois ''Papa Doc'' Duvalier, with his death squad of the Tonton Macoutes. Following his unlamented death, he was succeeded by his son, Jean Claude ''Baby Doc'' Duvalier, who continued the misery until he was exiled in 1986. 

Few if any nations have suffered so grievously, over such a sustained period of time, numbering decades.

Yet even today in the first month of 2025, the international community is starkly,  inexplicably and mostly indifferent, even though Haiti is teetering on a precipice of despair, dying day by day, by agonizing degrees.