“Since July 8th, there has been an intensification of violence in Cité Solei and especially in the area which I live in, which is called Brooklyn. There is heavy fighting in the streets and everyone is very stressed. We cannot leave our homes most of the time and there is no traffic coming in and out of the neighborhood.

This causes a lot of problems especially the lack of food and water. I am sometimes able to share food with neighbors, but many people are going hungry. The small amount of drinking water that is available has tripled in price.

We have a greeting in our language, Creole, when someone leaves home, we tell them to be “pridan” or careful, but this expression has lost its meaning now because our life is so dangerous. You think you are safe at home but bullets know every pathway and back alley in our neighborhood.

UNDP Haiti/Borja Lopetegui Gonzalez
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The cycle of fear, stress, and despair

If a friend or family member manages to leave the Cité Soleil, we begin to worry that they have been killed if we don’t hear from them during the day. This adds, even more, worry to our already traumatic life.

I go to bed and wake up to the sound of gunfire which is very stressful, but, even if the shooting terrifies me, I try and use the rhythmic sound of bullets being fired to lull me to sleep; this is the only way I can survive through this difficult period. Sometimes, you can use music to escape the constant shooting noise, but not when shots are being fired so close to your house; it’s just too loud.

My life now is a cycle of fear, stress and despair. I’m always experiencing at least one of these feelings and I just want them to stop, so I can get back to normality.

UN Haiti/Daniel Dickinson
Youth in the troubled neighborhood of Cité Soleil are encouraged to get together 
over social activities.

Battling for a simple but normal life

Despite this, I do have some hope and remain positive most of the time. The work I’m doing with my youth group Comite Consultatif des Jeunes is helping me to get through this difficult period.

The group organizes activities bringing young people from Cité Soleil, and two other neighborhoods, Saint-Martin and Bel-Air, which are controlled by rival gangs. We bring hundreds of children together to enjoy sports, music, or to play board games like chess.

We are working with young women and men to build friendships and support networks across the broader community. In a way, as the fighting continues around us, we are battling for a simple but normal life, where you can walk the streets with friends, find a job or start a small business. Of course, it has not been possible to carry out any of these activities over the last two weeks.

Hear our voices

I am committed to working with young people to improve their lives and I see myself as a leader. Being part of the committee gives me confidence and helps to empower me and the other nine members.

We want our voices to be heard outside Cité Soleil, because if no-one hears us nothing will change. If people living in the rest of Port-au-Prince or indeed anywhere in the world hear us, then we can’t be forgotten, and we can work together to change our lives for the better.

“I spent much of my childhood in the south of the capital, in Cité Plus, from the age of 10, until I got married 16 years later. Back then, it was a peaceful neighborhood, but it has been transformed into a lawless, hellish zone.

We didn’t grow up wealthy, but we always had enough to eat, and my parents (my father was an electrical engineer and my mother a shopkeeper) made enough to send me and my three siblings to private schools. I went on to study philosophy at the University of Haiti, as well as law and economics.

I later studied as a multimedia journalist, and joined UNDP in 2014, initially as a volunteer and, two years later, as a staff member.

© UNDP Haiti
A crowded sidewalk with various items for sale in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood.

Constant insecurity

The positive side of working at UNDP is that, on the ground, we get to meet principled, resilient people who believe in a better future with a strong community spirit, and who work hard, in the absence of basic public services.

And, at our offices, I work with extraordinary colleagues, who maintain their professionalism and work effectively, despite the many crises that have an effect on their personal and work lives.

However, we all work under a persistent sense of insecurity, and the fear that people will find out where we work.

Many people believe that all UN staff members are rich, and this gives rise to jealousy and even hatred, amongst those who don’t have the same opportunities as us, in a country with a very high rate of unemployment.

With the alarming rise in the number of kidnappings we have seen recently, this sense of insecurity is increasing.

A life-threatening commute

I knew that, as a staff member for an international organization in Port-au-Prince, I would only be able to live in certain neighborhoods, and would have to be careful who I told about my job.

Over the last year, as the security situation has deteriorated, I have also had to be careful which roads I take to get to work. This is the case for me, and other colleagues who live in areas such as Carrefour, Mariani, Merger, Gressier, or Léogâne.

My wife and I are obliged to stay with family in Port-au-Prince during the week, even though we have built a family home in Gressier. Our two children are at school there, and we can only hope to see them on the weekend if we are able to make the journey.

Otherwise, we can only communicate by telephone, as if we were living in another country.

Commuting is too dangerous. The authorities have lost control of the Martissant-Fontamara road, and gangsters are pillaging the population, raping women, and shooting at passengers on buses or in cars.

© UNDP Haiti
A young woman displays souvenir items for sale on a wall in a 
Port-au-Prince neighborhood.

Horrors on the road

Traveling by road means accepting that you will be driving past human bodies, left on the roadside to be eaten by dogs. I doubt that those killed in Martissant even figure in the official death statistics.

Things really were different before. During my childhood, Cité Plus was like many other neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. There were many poor families, single mothers, and children whose parents couldn’t afford to feed them or send them to school, but there was less crime.

Today in Haiti, ideas such as free choice, free movement, and security are becoming more and more removed from reality.

‘I feel as if I’m in a country that is dying’

© UNDP
A man walking in Delmas, Port au Prince, Haiti.

The future of Haiti is very uncertain. We live in a failed State. I don’t feel that we have the leaders in a position of authority to restore order.

It’s a situation of total terror. I feel as if I’m in a country that is dying.

Whatever happens, I will fight to survive, no matter what. But to survive, you need to stay alive, and I’m worried that the insecurity is getting closer and closer to me.

Many of my acquaintances have become victims of violence and kidnappings, either directly or indirectly. I fear that my wife and children are targets for criminals.

Given the current situation, many people have left the country, and many more are planning to leave. Even the intellectual elite, those with a decent quality of life, are emigrating.

I want to stay in a Haiti whose institutions work for its citizens, without any discrimination, where inequality is reduced, and all citizens have access to basic services.

I don’t think that Haiti is necessarily doomed. We can find our way out of this mess, as long as there is a collective awakening, and a critical mass decides to get us back on track. But this will require a lot of sacrifices, and a willingness to act in the collective interest.