Nadia Lochard, coordinator of Haiti’s Civil Protection agency, confirmed on Sept. 25 that five people had died and 57 were injured the day before when a violent storm hit Port-au-Prince and areas to the south, including Petit Goâve and Îles Cayimites. Lochard said most of the injuries and damage took place in the camps where some 1.3 million local residents have been living since they were displaced by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Jan. 12.
According to news reports, the dead included a baby in the Caradeux camp in the northeastern Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre, a 93-year-old woman in Camp Acra the capital’s Delmas section and a food vendor at Poste Marchand in the downtown area. Some 20 of the injuries reportedly resulted from a tree falling on the camp at the Pétionville Club at Delmas 48 street. Lochard said about 2,000 tents were damaged. Local local media specified that 1,000 tents were destroyed at Camp Acra, 1,000 in the huge, impoverished Cité Soleil neighborhood, and 100 at the camp at the Champ de Mars near the Presidential Palace. Camp Charbon, in Carrefour, southwest of the capital, where 500 people were living, was completely destroyed, according to Haiti’s Radio Kiskeya. (AlterPresse, Haiti, Sept. 25; Radio Kiskeya, Sept. 24)
In other news, an angry crowd killed police agent Guilloteau Hubert and burned down the police station at the town of Cayes-Jacmel the night of Sept. 23. Witnesses said the crowd reacted when the agent arrested and then tried to kill a young man, Johnny Joseph. Joseph was reportedly hospitalized with three bullet wounds. (Radio Métropole, Haiti, Sept. 24) (Cayes-Jacmel, near the city of Jacmel in the Southeast department, is in the zone that suffered heavy damage from the earthquake.)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 26.
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