The crying and pain of children fleeing the bloody gang war in Haiti

“The shot is strong, keep making noise in my head”12-year-old Esperancia Rémy tells Efe, one of the many children who fled from Cité Soleil, a municipality in the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, the scene in the last weeks of a bloody war between armed gangs.

The girl She is a refugee along with hundreds of minors in a school in Delmas 33, while his parents are still in Cité Soleil, where clashes between armed gangs have resulted in more than one hundred deaths and thousands of newly displaced people, according to humanitarian and human rights organizations.

In total, there are around 700 Cité-Soleil refugee children, mostly unaccompanied, housed in five centers run by the charity La famille de Kizito.

“I saw how people burned alive”“There is a woman whose child was burned in her house”, “They shoot you and then they burn you”, some of the few women who were able to go out with their children from Cité Soleil, an area where gang clashes have been a constant over the past decade.

The war also took Michelet Jean, 16, whose brother, Peter, survived a shot last year made by a member of these criminal groups.

“I have seen many dead. I have seen people who fought in war, injuries and people who were taken to hospital,” said the teenager.

War

These testimonials attest the atrocity of the ongoing wars in Cité Soleil from 7 July, between the G9 gang coalition, led by former policeman Jimmy Cherisier, aka Barbecue, and the GPEP, led by Ti Gabriel.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in the past three years, in a context of persistent political and economic crisis, armed gangs have gradually extended their control about more than a third of the metropolitan area of ​​Port-au-Prince.

While OCHA reports 99 dead and 135 injured, the National Human Rights Network (RNDDH) reports more than 300 dead and 160 injured in these bloody armed conflicts.

For its part, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights speaks of 234 victims in general and the Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights (CARDH) reports 150 dead and 300 injured.

But, according to the civilian population, no one will be able to really count the number of dead.

“As soon as they grab you, they burn you alive,” says a displaced woman with three of her children.

the dead are “soldiers from both sides, civilians, children, babies and women”according to the residents of Cité Soleil who have been scattered in various areas for several days.

they need everything

“Most of these children only went out with the clothes they were wearing. So they have nothing,” missionary Paesie, founder of the Kizito family, an organization that has served children in the Cité-Soleil neighborhood for years, told Efe. . .

They are between 6 and 17 years old “and they need everything”, from water and food to mattresses and sheets, explains Paesie, a French citizen.

The missionary says she has received help from individuals and organizations such as UNICEF and the World Food Program (WFP), but it is insufficient due to the number of children.

One of the children saw his father burned aliveOthers don’t even know where their parents are, he says.

Housed in squares and schools, these displaced people ask for help to be relocated, as they do not want to return to the city because “is always at war”.

“In these neighborhoods where these children come from, all the houses have been burned down. There is only one school left,” according to Paesie.

It is clear that this is a temporary situation that cannot last long, he added, confident that parents “find a way to pick up their children”.

“Our house was burned down. I ask the state to give me a place to sleep, “says Mirlande, a shopkeeper and mother of five who lives behind one of Paesie’s schools.

Like her, all the heads of families living in this school are asking for their relocation as it is impossible for them to return to the area as their homes have been burned down.

EFE agency

PB