Haiti's tiny earthquake survivors need special protection (Feature)

By Silvia Ayuso Jan 25, 2010, 19:32 GMT

Port-au-Prince - They are lost and roam the streets, they lace life in refugee camps with laughter and tears, they are starving and with every day they miss school, they get further and further from the chance at a decent future.

Children are the youngest victims of the earthquake that shook Haiti on January 12. Beyond the material losses and the trauma, they are at special risk of being kidnapped or being declared orphans before every effort has been made to connect them with whatever family survived, international experts say.

How many are there? Nobody knows for sure. According to UN organizations, up to half-a-million children were somehow affected by the quake. And even before the tremblor, there were already an estimated 380,000 orphans in the poor Caribbean country.

Haiti is not an easy country for adults, and it is even less so for children.

Orphanages are reporting their own shocking figures. They say the inflow of children is neverending. Some arrive at the gates on their own, others are taken there by people who found them on the streets, and some arrive with their own parents, who are unable to look after them now they have lost everything.

At Haiti's Christian Orphanage in Port-au-Prince there were 56 children before the quake. Now there are 50 more who claim they do not know if their parents survived or where they might be. They range in age from 6 to 12, but some are younger, including a few babies.

The orphanage, run by US organization from Indiana, the Bible Centre Cathedral, did not suffer too much damage in the quake, but now it is overwhelmed by the arrival of traumatized quake orphans.

Beyond protecting the children, the facility is providing shelter for scores of families who also lost everything in the quake, and the institution looks after their children while the adults go out to look for food or work.

'We can no longer hold anyone else,' says Reginald Fourquand, 22, one of the caretakers at the orphanage. 'But we cannot leave them out either.'

He grew up in the orphanage himself, and he knows the limits of the facility all too well. The building's storage space and backyard have been cleared to make fires for cooking.

'We have not received any aid and we need food, water and medicine,' Fourquand says, like so many other people around Haiti.

Even the little school that the orphanage once operated has had to be emptied out to take in newcomers. They will not miss the school for now, Fourquand notes, because 'the children's psychological state is not right to start lessons for now.'

Every time the ground shakes in Port-au-Prince, and there have been many strong aftershocks in recent days, children again panic. Defying the directions of their caretakers, the children lug the mattresses off their metal bunk beds and sleep outside, too scared that there may be another collapse.

With only very scarce means, caretakers try to provide educational therapy, but above all they let the children play as much as possible with whatever is at hand, which is not a lot: an old ball, an even older scooter.

'We try to talk to them, to give them encouragement, to play with them to make them forget what happened. Because if all this stays in their minds something serious is going to happen to them,' Fourquand says.

The orphanage is aware of the dangers that these children currently face, including the uncertainties of rushed adoption procedures.

For this reason, they will not take any steps until the arrival of the institution's director, US pastor Rick Vanhoose.

'It is the director who will decide what to do, until then we will not do anything,' he says.

Until Vanhoose gets to Haiti, where he is eagerly awaited, the orphanage has taken precautions to prevent any of the children from getting lost or, as many fear these days in Port-au-Prince, from being kidnapped.

The facility's iron gate, which always used to be open as a welcoming gesture, is now permanently closed. There is an extra watch, and the older orphans are themselves on the alert.