Tropical Storm Isaac, which hit Haiti in late August, highlighted the urgent need to close the 575 camps in the country that have been sheltering nearly 400,000 people since the disastrous 2010 earthquake. Luckily, on this occasion, there was rapid and coordinated reaction, in which the most vulnerable people in camps were evacuated well before the storm struck the country.
However, people were returned from evacuation shelters to the camps as soon as the storm passed over. “The camps got lucky this time and dodged the bullet,” said the Haiti chief of mission of the International Organization of Migration, Luca Dall’Oglio. “But the international community needs to act now to close all the camps by providing rental subsidies and housing solutions for those living there. The social and financial costs of evacuating a camp population every time there is a major storm can far outstrip the cost of providing housing rental solutions.”
The well-coordinated response to the first major storm of the hurricane season followed months of preparatory work by Haiti and its international partners to build resilience into the civil protection system. Storms have caused thousands of deaths in Haiti in the past and strike with predictable ferocity. The capital Port-au-Prince was spared when Isaac turned out to sea and away from the city. Even so, eight people were killed, according to the authorities.
The huge depression brought heavy rain and winds in excess of 100 kph that destroyed thousands of tents and shelters in the camps.
“While civil protection and preparedness will continue to be a high priority for Haiti for the foreseeable future, we will fall down on the job as humanitarians if we do not urgently find the necessary resources to close these camps quickly,” Dall’Oglio said.
