Photo: DerSpiegel
A massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Wednesday, has now left us filtering through the flood of disturbing images that have begun to flood in from the country. The epicenter of the quake was located just 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, leaving entire sections of the city utterly devastated.
As rescue and humanitarian teams from across the globe began to assemble to aid the true toll of Wednesday’s devastating earthquake has only begun to emerge. The homeless and wounded fill the streets, thousands missing, and bodies are continuing to mount, though the true number of dead is far from known, as estimates are ranging from 50,000 to over 100,000.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the impoverished country has already been continually devastated by successive hurricanes over the last two years alone, destroyed much of the already fragile and overburdened infrastructure in the most densely populated part of the country. A massive and immediate international response is needed to provide food, water, shelter, and medical supplies for tens of thousands of people.
Haiti appeals for aid; officials fear 100,000 dead after earthquake, however officials fear the numbers are much greater.
“Simply getting through the streets to collect the dead bodies is seemingly an impossible task,” CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported from the capital, where shooting could be heard in the background. “There’s hardly any heavy machinery to try and dig through the rubble — people are doing it by hand.
“The hospitals themselves — the destination of those patients who might survive — they’re nonexistent or have a terrible infrastructure,” Gupta said.
Photo: Der Speigel
As someone in the anti-trafficking news of the disaster in Haiti has my mind rushing to worrying thoughts on how the disaster will increase human trafficking in the country. Such a large scale disaster will undoubtedly leave thousands and thousands of children, and their families, at an increased to be victimized by modern slavery.
Haiti’s Restavek system still has a tight grip on the community, leaving some 300,000 children in the country enslaved as domestic workers according to the UN. It is these children who will continue to anguish and suffer the most in the shadows of the earthquake. I think now of strained organizations, such as Limye Lavil, who work daily to fight on behalf of the Restavek children. Organizations which work tirelessly to address the economic and educational roots of the problem in Haiti are addressed, now are facing an even bigger challenge, to see that the plight of thousands of children are not victimized, revictimized, or lost in the shadows of the disaster. You can see more on the country’s Restavek children in my previous posts; Haiti’s Enslaved Children and A Shocking Look into Child Slavery in Haiti Tonight on Nightline. Please also see the post, Haiti’s Children the Poor of the Poor.
