Overview:
Petit-Goâve honored and laid to relaxation Saturday, Nov. 15, the 18 individuals, together with 10 youngsters, swept away by the La Digue River throughout Hurricane Mélissa. As grief and anger mount, residents demand pressing motion from a authorities struggling to confront local weather vulnerability, environmental degradation and recurring pure disasters.
PETIT-GOAVE, Haiti— In some of the painful moments within the city’s current historical past, Petit-Goâve laid to relaxation 18 residents — together with 10 youngsters — who had been swept away by the rising La Digue River throughout Hurricane Mélissa’s lethal passage.
A whole bunch gathered within the city sq. about 42 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince on Saturday, Nov. 15, for a collective funeral mourning and honoring lives misplaced within the brutal October storm. They cried, sang and demanded pressing authorities motion as Haiti faces one more lethal reminder of its vulnerability to pure disasters.
From early morning, rows of 18 coffins lined the Place d’Armes, drawing a silent crowd. Households clung to one another as hymns rose above the sound of sobbing. Among the many mourners was a girl who recognized herself solely as Patricia, citing privateness issues. She misplaced six kin.
“I misplaced the whole lot I had,” she whispered in Creole, earlier than collapsing in tears.
Native authorities mentioned the victims had been carried away when the La Digue River burst its banks after torrential rains. Based on Nozalito Soliman, an Administrative Council member (CASEC) for the twelfth communal part of Petit-Goâve, years of uncared for riverbank upkeep and the absence of dredging work magnified the destruction.
“We’ve got been sounding the alarm,” Soliman mentioned. “With out intervention, the river was a disaster ready to occur.”
Hurricane Melissa severely impacted the West Division’s commune because it moved over Haiti, leading to not less than 25 deaths within the space when the river all of a sudden flooded. In a preliminary report after the storm, civil safety authorities mentioned {that a} robust present within the La Digue River additionally left 10 individuals lacking, together with 5 members of the identical household.
Hurricane Mélissa struck as Haiti stays overwhelmed by overlapping crises — gang violence, political instability, mass displacement, meals insecurity and a weakened state. The nation is among the many most climate-vulnerable on this planet, the place deforestation, unregulated building and poor watershed administration routinely flip heavy rains into lethal floods.
For a lot of in Petit-Goâve, Mélissa’s destruction appears like a recurring nightmare: the devastating August 2021 earthquake, Hurricane Matthew in 2016, current lethal floods and numerous different native disasters that got here earlier than.
Reverend Father Boniface Sénat, who officiated the ceremony, urged residents and authorities to confront the environmental roots of those tragedies.
“We’ve got been sounding the alarm. With out intervention, the river was a disaster ready to occur.”
Nozalito Soliman, Administrative Council Member of Petit-Goâve’s twelfth Part
“It’s time to plant bushes as an alternative of slicing them down,” he mentioned. “If we don’t shield the land, it can not shield us.”
Mayor Bertrand Subrème echoed the warning, calling for a coordinated response to deforestation, erosion and unregulated riverbed settlement.
Regardless of profound sorrow, the ceremony showcased the group’s energy. Neighbors supported grieving households, volunteers distributed water and candles, and residents who misplaced nobody nonetheless got here to face beside those that misplaced the whole lot.
Soliman mentioned he has formally requested the municipality to determine state-owned land to relocate households residing in high-risk zones.
“Folks can not return to the identical hazard,” he mentioned. “The federal government should act now.”
Authorities absence fuels frustration
A whole bunch attended the funeral — households, native officers, religion leaders and group teams — however one absence stood out: no consultant of Haiti’s central authorities was current.
“It’s as if we don’t exist,” mentioned one resident. “Even in our grief, we’re alone.”
Because the coffins had been carried away one after the other, Petit-Goâve’s mourning become a well-recognized plea. Residents say they can’t endure one other preventable catastrophe, particularly as local weather change intensifies storms like Mélissa and Haiti’s weakened state struggles to reply.
For households nonetheless looking for lacking family members or rebuilding houses alongside the La Digue River, the hope is that tragedy will lastly convey motion — earlier than the subsequent storm arrives. However the promised assist from the central authorities and nongovernmental organizations stays elusive.
Practically $10 million in logistical help, provides and funds are being managed independently to higher attain hardest-hit areas, a number of teams say
Beneath are photographs from the mass funeral honoring the victims.
