Rush to build camps in Haiti before rainy season starts (Feature)

By Andrea Sosa Cabrios Jan 29, 2010, 17:45 GMT

Port-au-Prince - Aid organizations in Haiti face the challenge of building suitable long-term camps for 1 million people before the start of the Caribbean nation's rainy season in April or May.

All across Port-au-Prince there are camps, made up of either proper tents or their equivalents made of sheets and plastic. There are at least 500 settlements of this kind across the Haitian capital's metropolitan region alone.

The scenery is the same in other cities affected by the devastating January 12 earthquake, such as Leogane, about 30 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, where the quake's epicentre was located and 90 per cent of the buildings were destroyed.

'Tents are an option for three to five months in the dry season, but we need solutions that are sufficiently long-lasting, for at least two years, to set up emergency and transition camps when the rain arrives in a few months,' said Vincent Houver, head of the mission for Haiti of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

In recent days, workmen have been levelling out the ground, drawing up lots and building latrines in what is set to be the first such transitional camp, at Croix des Bouquets, about 15 kilometres east of Port-au-Prince.

Future residents are set to be trained at pitching tents, and are to get paid for their work. The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is to finance later the construction of permanent homes in the same location.

'The interesting thing there will be that they will set up tents until the houses are ready. It is about 40 hectares: 10 will be for the tents, and 30 for the construction of houses,' IOM spokeswoman Niurka Pineiro told the German Press Agency dpa.

The Haitian government contemplated the possibility of building large camps that held over 100,000 people each. However, Pineiro notes that the plan is to build settlements for only 10,000-15,000 people each.

In addition to Croix des Bouquets, a smaller site is being prepared to house around 4,000 people on Route de Tabarre, near the US embassy in Port-au-Prince. Another camp is set to be built in Leogane for local residents of that city, and the details of other camps are yet to be decided upon.

The key goal is to keep as many people as possible close to where they lived before the quake, believed to have claimed up to 200,000 lives in Haiti.

According to the IOM, earlier disasters showed that uprooting those affected by a catastrophe can lead to social problems and violence.

One major issue, however, is that there are not enough open spaces in Port-au-Prince to pitch such tent cities. There are also not enough tents to go round: the Haitian government asked for 200,000, but only 35,500 have arrived in the country so far.

'Tents did not arrive at first because priority was being given to food,' Pineiro notes. 'The big issue now are the camps, because the supply of food and water is already underway.'