Hungry Haitians Struggling To Get To The United States New Wave Of Boat People

 

Faced with the grim prospect of acute hunger, starvation and death and with no relief in sight many Haitians are taking to the treacherous seas in attempts to make it to the United States. An ever-rising cost of staple foods and governmental impotence is driving a new exodus from Haiti in rickety boats in shark-infested waters.

In the small town of Montrouis, north of Port-au-Prince, desperate Haitians say they will seize the first opportunity to escape the misery that plagues the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

"I will leave with the next boat going to Miami because I can no longer resist this hunger," Marcel Jonassaint, 34, said this week as he sat barefoot near the dock in Montrouis, throwing a handful of small rocks into the ocean.

"I have four children and I don't have a job and everything is expensive, even for those who are working," Mr. Jonassaint said. "So what do you want me to do?"

Montrouis is a coastal village, overlooking the island of La Gonave, reputed to be a key launching point for migrant boats.

"I left earlier this year. Our boat was intercepted in the high seas, but I will try again," said 29-year-old Rachel Chavanne. "I know some people, like a cousin of mine, who had a successful trip there.

"My turn will also come one day," she said, with a smile on her face.

Haitian lawmakers fired prime minister Jacques Eduard Alexis earlier this month to quell anger over rising food prices that sparked violent protests in Haiti. At least six people died in a week of protests and looting. The director for the country's national migration office, Jeanne Bernard Pierre, said since the food crisis, her agency has received more repatriated Haitian boat people in a week than it used to receive in a month or more.

"We have received 212 repatriated last week, we have just received 227 and we are receiving 114 tomorrow," Ms. Pierre said.

"It is clear that more boat people have been leaving the country and you should expect even more if they cannot find an alternative," said Ms. Pierre, who urged the government and the international community to set up programs to ease the plight of the poorest and most vulnerable.

The U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted 972 Haitian migrants at sea since Oct. 1, compared with 376 during the same period last year. But the numbers fluctuate and it's impossible to link any spike in the numbers to any one event such as the recent food riots.

"We even show them pictures of sharks eating people, but they would tell us they know many others who reached U.S. soil and who are now sending money to relatives left in Haiti," said Ms. Pierre.

There are frequent reports of drownings when unsafe and overloaded migrant vessels capsize or break apart while trying to reach the United States and the Bahamas. A suspected migrant smuggling boat capsized off the Bahamas last week and rescue crews recovered three survivors and 15 bodies, many of them Haitians. Human rights activist Renan Hedouville said Haitians are leaving because the government and the rest of the world have turned a blind eye to the hungry.

 

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