In
the Bahamas tourists are still sunbathing on the beaches and still
swimming in the sea. It is as if nothing has changed in paradise. Not
to distant from the hotels and swimming pools. Holiday heaven has
turned into a hell-hole. Every dwelling had been destroyed. Cars are
overturned. The ground has become a land strewn with waste. People
are homeless; no one knows how many died here and how many evacuated.
Natural disasters expose the gap between the haves and have nots and
Hurricane Dorian was no different. Bahamas
has
a reputation is one of the most desirable tourist destinations on
earth, with luxury hotels and vacation homes. But once again, it is
the poorest who have been hardest hit when catastrophe strikes. The
Bahamas has the second highest economic and social inequality in the
Caribbean. As Hurricane Dorian approached, affluent people were able
to get out early whereas the poor had to remain and try to ride it
out. Nearly two weeks after Dorian made landfall, at least 50 deaths
have been reported, more than 1,300 people are missing and an
estimated 15,000
are without food or shelter.
Many
poor lost everything. Earl
Arthurs, the operations specialist for the Caribbean Disaster
Emergency Management Agency, said: “Any disaster, the poor people
will be the ones that are punished. A poor person owns a small house
and it’s not insured so when the hurricane comes and it’s washed
away, that’s it. A rich person owns a nice mansion and it gets
totaled but he gets money to build a new one. So that’s a big
difference. Some of these people are living from hand to mouth,
weekly pay cheque, so when something like this happens and they
cannot work, they will definitely be dependent on government for
support.” There are concerns that undocumented Haitian immigrants
may be reluctant to seek government aid lest they be penalized and
deported. Arthurs said: “In every country, including the United
States, people are scared to come out and register during crisis
time, because after the crisis is finished they fear that they
probably have enough information on them to go and pick them up and
deport them.”
Paul
Taylor, the operations response manager of Team
Rubicon UK, an NGO working with partners to coordinate and
distribute aid, added: “As ever, there are people who do the work
that the rich people don’t want to do and here that’s the Haitian
community. There are lot of illegals here as well.I
think the issue now is what happens to people who don’t have any
status here, who might be quite concerned about that. You’ve got to
evacuate people from the islands – big reconstruction job – but
where do those people go?”
Haitians
have lived in the Bahamas for centuries but face poverty and
prejudice, for reasons including religious beliefs that can include
voodoo. A 2008 article in the College of the Bahamas Research
Journal, entitled the
Stigma of Being ‘Haitian’ in the Bahamas,
noted that “Bahamians have long ‘looked-down’ on Haitians as
not being social equals”.
The
Mudd shanty town was built by thousands of Haitian immigrants over
decades in Marsh Harbour on Abaco. But it was wiped out in hours, its
flimsy wooden structures standing little chance against the wrath of
Dorian. Many
fled and are unaccounted for. Some have evacuated by boat to Nassau.
Some sought refuge in places such as the pink-walled New Haitian
Mission Baptist church. Charles Ilfrenord, its pastor, who moved from
Haiti 35 years
ago but still has family there, said: “Plenty of people died in the
Mudd. I think more than 1,000.”
“It’s
all fine when you’re living in paradise and a Haitian comes and
mows your lawn. We’ve just created our own structure and there
hasn’t been any attempt to integrate.” said one person.
Another
said, “Everybody’s been hit, the rich and the poor, but for the
rich it’s less severe because they live in better buildings. The
people you work for for years don’t send a private plane for you.
You worked for them for years but they don’t give you any food, any
vacation pay.”
Tourism
employs about half the Bahamian workforce and accounts for around
half GDP. Abaco is renowned for its marinas, golf courses and
all-inclusive resorts. Even now, a leaflet at Nassau airport
advertises the Abaco Beach Resort, including “a boating paradise
unlike any other”. Glen Kelly, its harbour master, told
the Washington Post: “I’ll put it as raw as I can. We’ve
always depended on Haitian labour, legal or illegal, to maintain this
place. Now it’s a question of whether they’ll be back.”
Lydia
Ruth Hill, a
property manager, had no sleep for 48 hours as she searched for
missing people in the rubble; two of her relatives are still
unaccounted for. She is now inundated with messages from those who
left and are worried about their possessions.
“The
night before last I answered 400 and some emails of people requesting
me to send them stuff – ‘get the guns out of my safe, get my
Rolex watch’ – or empty their fridges, when mine’s got rotten
stuff in it right now, or care for their pet when mine are dead
because I lost my house and everything, and less than 20% supporting
us to say what can we try to help you with? They
were just really inconsiderate requests when we were on survival mode
here and then people mouthing off at us when we said that we don’t
have time to do that. At that point I was still trying to get
critical care people off the island.”
No comments:
Post a Comment