Port-au-Prince, January 30: Let alone their ongoing suffering since the disaster, Haiti earthquake survivors are gripped by fears of criminals preying on their camps.
“With the blackout that’s befallen the Haitian capital, bandits are taking advantage to harass and rape women and young girls under the tents,” said national police chief Mario Andresol, reported.
“We have more than 7,000 detainees in the streets who escaped from the National Penitentiary the evening of the earthquake.
“.. It took us five years to apprehend them. Today they are running wild,” he said.
Haiti was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12, killing thousands and left more than one million homeless.
While thousands of criminals have escaped prisons, the quake has also crippled Haiti’s 8,000-strong police force.
“We lost 70 police officers, nearly 500 are still missing and 400 were wounded,” Andresol said at a temporary office standing in for the capital’s police headquarters, which collapsed in the quake.
Though there are no figures about the number of crimes committed since the quake, women’s organization have documented a number of cases.
Rachelle Dolce, who is living in a makeshift camp on the Petionville Club Golf Course, recalls an assault outside her tent.
“I heard a fight outside, and I saw panties on the ground,” she said.
“I started to shout a lot, and they left.”
Panic
Once night befalls, panic grips Haiti quake survivors.
“At night, people take things,” Omen Cola told at the Champ de Mars tent camp.
“But I don’t have a problem. I don’t have anything to steal,” she added, while washing a blouse in basin made from a cut-off plastic container.
The chaos left by Haiti’s quake has raised fears that vulnerable children could fall prey to human traffickers.
The UN said last week that a number have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti.
Fending for themselves, the panicked Haitians gather their belongings into a pile at night and sleeping beside them to guard against theft.
In corners of the sprawling camp, youths were banding together to protect their possessions bags of clothes, chickens, car batteries and to collect garbage into piles to be burned.
But this raised fears, too, that the bands might fight among themselves.
Tina Irisia recalls when a group of youths shouted that a tsunami was on the way.
When residents fled, the youths stole whatever they could get their hands on.
“I don’t feel safe,” said the 45-year-old.
“But I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
-Agencies