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Rush to build camps in Haiti before rainy season starts
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 29 - 01 - 2010

au-Prince, Jan 29, 2010, SPA -- Aid organizations in Haiti face the
challenge of building suitable long-term camps for 1 million people
before the start of the Caribbean nation's rainy season in April or
May, according to dpa.
All across Port-au-Prince there are camps, made up of either
proper tents or their equivalents made of sheets and plastic. There
are at least 500 settlements of this kind across the Haitian
capital's metropolitan region alone.
The scenery is the same in other cities affected by the
devastating January 12 earthquake, such as Leogane, about 30
kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, where the quake's epicentre was
located and 90 per cent of the buildings were destroyed.
"Tents are an option for three to five months in the dry season,
but we need solutions that are sufficiently long-lasting, for at
least two years, to set up emergency and transition camps when the
rain arrives in a few months," said Vincent Houver, head of the
mission for Haiti of the International Organization for Migration
(IOM).
In recent days, workmen have been levelling out the ground,
drawing up lots and building latrines in what is set to be the first
such transitional camp, at Croix des Bouquets, about 15 kilometres
east of Port-au-Prince.
Future residents are set to be trained at pitching tents, and are
to get paid for their work. The Inter-American Development Bank
(IADB) is to finance later the construction of permanent homes in the
same location.
"The interesting thing there will be that they will set up tents
until the houses are ready. It is about 40 hectares: 10 will be for
the tents, and 30 for the construction of houses," IOM spokeswoman
Niurka Pineiro told the German Press Agency dpa.
The Haitian government contemplated the possibility of building
large camps that held over 100,000 people each. However, Pineiro
notes that the plan is to build settlements for only 10,000-15,000
people each.
In addition to Croix des Bouquets, a smaller site is being
prepared to house around 4,000 people on Route de Tabarre, near the
US embassy in Port-au-Prince. Another camp is set to be built in
Leogane for local residents of that city, and the details of other
camps are yet to be decided upon.
The key goal is to keep as many people as possible close to where
they lived before the quake, believed to have claimed up to 200,000
lives in Haiti.
According to the IOM, earlier disasters showed that uprooting
those affected by a catastrophe can lead to social problems and
violence.
One major issue, however, is that there are not enough open spaces
in Port-au-Prince to pitch such tent cities. There are also not
enough tents to go round: the Haitian government asked for 200,000,
but only 35,500 have arrived in the country so far.
"Tents did not arrive at first because priority was being given to
food," Pineiro notes. "The big issue now are the camps, because the
supply of food and water is already underway."


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