What happens to displaced-persons expelled from Hugo Chavez Square?

Expelled from Place Hugo Chavez on November 17, 2022, several dozen of those displaced persons have found refuge in the Delmas 3 Reception Center. They accuse the town hall of Tabarre of being responsible for their miserable fate.

Fleeing the gang war in Cité Soleil and other neighborhoods plagued by violence, several hundred citizens took refuge in the public square of Maïs-Gâté, not far from Toussaint Louverture International Airport, on July 8, 2022. A few months after being installed, the authorities carried out their expulsion in conditions deemed infamous.

Destitute, a significant part of these residents have been living in the ruins of the delmas 3 Reception Center, since December 2022, forgotten by state assistance.  Sheltered under the ruins of the reception center, their socio-economic and security's situation has not improved in this shattered place.

Account of a nightmarish journey on the eve of their expulsion

 

 “On November 17, 2022, it was 3 a.m., when agents get to the square, people believed in help to move them, yet it was an eviction that was going to worsen their situation” says Wilfritz Joseph, who presents himself as the leader of the dozens of displaced people at the reception centre.

Wilfritz wants to detail the events that followed their expulsion without making the chronology.  The survivors of the gang war raging in Cité-Soleil were expelled on the night of November 17th and 18th by police officers. While some groups have been rehabilitated, these displaced people testify to having been abandoned in the street.  “Most of us had taken refuge in front of the Sogener (private interprise)  headquarters,” testified one of the witnesses , added that the police had  asked them to leave out the place.  “We couldn't stay in front of Dimitri Vorbe's building,” continues the witness. “The same evening, a group of security guards from Sogener made the same remark to us,” he adds.  A ban that had announced the beginning of a long journey.

 

“ We went through terrible moments, moving from one place to another” testify the two men, who see in the space of the reception center, an oasis in the middle of the desert.

The crowd then gathered in front of the Brana, where the pressure was meteoric, according to the witnesses “we were under enormous pressure there, the police even threw tear gas canisters at the displaced people” confides to us the  pair, pointing the finger at the town hall of Tabarre in their fate.  Earlier, the town hall had promised relocation subsidies.  “The town hall promised us between 50 and 75 thousand gourdes per family, yet some families found between 2, 3 or 5 thousand,” he says.

 

«  I have nothing to say about it  »

To clarify the subject, the mayor did not respond to our calls.  Met by one of our reporters, she said: “I have nothing to say about it”. 

 

Wilfritz Joseph, nicknamed “pastè” at the reception centre, told us that he took the road to the ruins of the delmas 3 reception centre, leaving the others in the street next to the BRANA ( National brewery) footbridge.

Hellish daily life in the ruins

 

Located near the Public Company for the Promotion of Social Housing (EPPLS), the Delmas 3 reception centre, in ruins for several years, houses dozens of street youths neglected by the state authorities.  They are now administrative staff and subordinates, orgonizing their own management committee.

Clearly, it is a double remissness that must be assume.  Young people cohabit with the internally displaced, expelled from Hugo Chavez Square.

At the entrance, the degraded ground in front of the barrier leaves no doubt that the failing state of the premises.  Rooms that used to be stuffed with feces now accommodate men, women, children and the elderly.  A concrete oasis that serves best to ward off sunburn and rain.

This macabre situation, not far from the State institution for the promotion of social housing, still escapes the attention of the authorities.  Wilfritz states that the support bodies have not yet been mobilized: “in the Hugo Chavez public square, we were supported by the WFP, OIM as well as mobile clinic services.  Here, no body has joined us,” he complains of the hunger that strikes the displaced.  The phenomenon is growing as insecurity spreads in the capital.

Insecurity, a machine for growing the production of internally displaced persons

Internally displaced people are growing as insecurity gains ground.  Nearly almost the entire capital is controlled by armed groups.  Their gang warfare becomes a production machine for internally displaced people. Bas-delmas, Croix-des-bouquet, Martissant or Cité-Soleil, the number of displaced people is close to thousands.

Faced with endless complaints from displaced people, the International Organization for Migration Haiti (IOM) seems to be listening.  It provides humanitarian assistance to nearly a thousand people, benefiting in particular from annual subsidies for the rental of accommodation, hygiene kits, medical and psychosocial care.

On February 22, 2023, IOM described in a report the security conditions in the Port-au-Prince Metropolitan Area as "problematic".  The organization specified that the series of armed attacks in Port-au-Prince caused the displacement of nearly 2,000 people in January 2023.

The organization specified in its report that it had multiplied its interventions by focusing on integrated protection activities for the benefit of accessible sites, especially the displaced people gathered in the vicinity of the “3 Mains” roundabout and the BRANA footbridge.  These are some of the survivors of the November 17, 2022 expulsion from the Hugo Chavez site.

Testimonies are coming from all over the reception center: “I lost my 26-year-old boy on July 11, 2022, in Cité Soleil.  He was a biker, he was shot,” complained one of the men at the Center.  A 60-year-old testifies to having lost her mother in the clashes in Cité-Soleil, then her 23-year-old son in December 2021, the reason which prompted her to flee the neighborhood.

 

Violence in Cité Soleil is such that between July 8 and December 31, 2022, in the Brooklyn district alone, 263 people were killed, 285 injured and 4 others missing; according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, during his visit to Haiti between February 8 and 10, 2023. This violence, which affects, among other things, the largest slum in the country and the rest of the capital is contributing to the deterioration of the living conditions of these thousands of men  , women, children and old chase from their neighborhood.

Writer: Guerby JEAN

https://vivevoixinfo.com/que-deviennent-les-deplaces-expulses-de-la-place-hugo-chavez/