 By JULIANA EZEOKE
It could best be described as a miracle. Even rescue workers did not think otherwise. Tiny Elizabeth Josaint, a 22-day old baby, was rescued alive eight days after she was buried in the rubble in the city of Jacmel, Haiti. Michelin, her mother, had nursed her to sleep and crossed over to the next door when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, struck. While Josaint survived the disaster, her father, who was on the ground floor of their house, went with the tremor. Emmanuel Buteau, a tailor, was another miracle. Trapped in the rubble of their house for 11 days, he said he thought he was a ghost. “I heard the voices of people outside but when I called out, nobody heard me. That’s when I started to believe I might be a ghost,” he recalled. But on Friday, January 22, help came his way. He heard the voice of his wailing mother who also responded to his call. She subsequently alerted rescue workers who pulled him out of the ruins. Buteau described himself as “the luckiest” of the 130 survivors rescued from the rubble of Haiti earthquake that claimed over 150,000 lives. But as rescue teams seemed to be gradually winding up rescue efforts and focusing more on retrieving dead bodies last week, survivors of the disaster are faced with more devastating problems. For instance, there is shortage of shelters for survivors. Vincent Houver, Haitian chief of the International Organisation for Migration, said though the agency’s warehouse at Port-au-Prince, the devastated capital city, held 10,000 family-size tents, such was insignificant compared to about 100,000 tents needed. The number would further be reduced to nothing when compared to an estimated 600,000 homeless people that had occupied an open area in the capital. About 200,000 of them had fled Port-au-Prince and 100,000 of them said to have returned to the coastal region of Gonaives in northern Haiti, a region said to have been deserted after two devastating floods that happened within six years. Insufficient food supply is another problem. Though the international community keeps flooding the country with aid materials, not all survivors have access to them. One of those that have not received any aid is Anite Bertrand who lives in the Leogane area of the country. Squatting in an open patch of grass under a tree with her son, Milky, she said her food had been leaves that fell from the tree. That was even as she nursed a gash on Milky’s head caused by a breeze block that landed on his head and which could not be treated until a week after because of lack of drugs. Lamenting her plight, she said, “We have nothing so we pick up the leaves, boil them in water from the river and eat them.” Haiti citizens believe the shortage of aid materials could be the handiwork of some corrupt leaders. Jean-Louis Jerome, who had lived in tarpaulin in a park since the quake, said “The United States, US, needs to come to help Haitians. If you give the aid to the person at the top, he will just put it in his pocket.” If people with parents are finding it difficult to survive, it would even be more difficult for orphans who have no one to cater for them. Aware of such a reality, Beth Klein, an attorney, had, after his appeal was granted by the United States Department of State, evacuated some 200 orphans to the US where they are to be adopted. Undoubtedly, this is a hard time for quake survivors. Maire Delphin Alceus, a survivor from Port-au-Prince, said, “Living in Port-au-Prince is a problem. Going to Gonaives is another problem. If I could, I would have left this country…”
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