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Violence and lack of sanitation grip hundreds of women and girls who have been living in a camp installed since July 8 in a public square in the Haitian capital, where they settled after fleeing the war between gangs in Cité-Soleil, an area Metropolitan Port- au-Prince.

They are women and girls who have lost brothers, husbands, fathers and sons, have seen their homes burned down by armed groups, and are among the more than 3,000 people who fled urban warfare between coalitions of armed gangs G9 en famille et alliés and GPEP , a conflict that has already left more than 300 dead.

In Plaza Hugo Chávez de Tabarre, near the capital’s airport, every woman seems to have at least one baby. Some children have been born on the spot, others will be born there in the coming days, as dozens of women have become pregnant, some of them girls between 11 and 15 years old.

UNSAFETY

The displaced camp is exposed to strong insecurity, which is why the camp committee, made up of 7 members and 12 security agents, has requested police reinforcement, especially at night, its spokesman, Jean Ernst Désilian, explained to Efe.

At least one girl was raped in the camp and the perpetrator was arrested and handed over to the police, while other minors complain of being touched by young men inappropriately.

“We have nothing in our hands to provide security, to help us do work at night. We have already had a case of rape in the square, not to mention physical attacks” on men and women, and people also say that there are armed people, he said.

In fact, some young people living in the camp are suspected of being members of Cité Soleil gangs, who walk around quietly carrying weapons. Since the displaced are not safe, they are forced to stay close to their belongings all day.

RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR

Marie Myrlande Romulus, 41, has a seven-year-old son who is stunted, still unable to walk, blind, deaf and mute from being beaten by gang members when she was 8 months pregnant. During the invasion of her neighborhood in 2015, the armed group targeted pregnant women.

“They beat me to death (…) The child was born with a crisis. (…). They said they were going to kill me at the kiosk. It was all this that impacted my son,” said Myrlande Romélus , whose son It is thanks to the intervention of other people.

At least 52 women and girls were victims of repeated violations in the context of the violence by armed gangs that broke out on July 7, 2022 in Cité Soleil, a popular municipality in the north of the capital, according to a report by the NGO Red National Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH).

Among the victims of these violations is a 14-year-old girl and at least 12 survivors are between 18 and 24 years old. About 20 of the victims were raped in the presence of their children, said the NGO, which defends and promotes human rights in Haiti.

LACK OF SANITATION AND UNSALUBRITY

“When we arrived at the square, we had no drinking water. We used the water from the pond, which is not clean. The water gives us infections and scabies. We live very poorly. We have no health care,” said Marie Flore Baptiste, 34, mother of four children, two of whom are fatherless.

When they bathe there, on the side of the road, people passing by in vehicles look at them. They lack privacy. “We are resigned because it is very hot, we cannot stay without bathing,” said Flore Baptiste.

As night falls, a long line of women bathes, without a modicum of privacy, near some portable toilets recently installed by the NGO Solidarités Internationales, and which give off a nauseating smell because countless people use them every day without maintenance. .

The displaced live in an unhealthy space where they are surrounded by flies, dust, dirt and the fetid smell of the omnipresent garbage in the square, where they cook and wash their sheets, wet from the torrential rains that fall almost every night, preventing women from resting. after spending hours on their feet with their children in tow.

Although the local and international press has stopped talking about the armed conflict, the displaced people that Efe had the opportunity to meet affirm that the war continues, which means that the number of people in the camp increases day by day.