Hurricane Matthew Devastates Haiti

The first Category 5 hurricane to hit the Atlantic Caribbean region in years, Hurricane Matthew, has left a path of destruction from Cuba to the Dominican Republic to Haiti in its wake. The storm reached a crescendo in early October in southern Haiti, where it hit the hardest, leading to what the United Nations is calling the worst humanitarian crisis the country has seen since the devastating 2010 earthquake. The official death toll, directly and indirectly due to the storm, currently stands at over 1,000 fatalities in Haiti alone. Cuba, particularly the eastern town of Baracoa, and the Bahamas have reported no deaths but extensive property and infrastructure damage. The Dominican Republic announced the deaths of four, Colombia one, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines one. Thus far, at least 43 have been confirmed dead in the United States. It is expected that the number of fatalities will continue to rise as the dust settles and until a proper evaluation as to the extent of the damage can begin.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, still had not fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake that left swathes of the country in shambles when Hurricane Matthew struck. The people in southern Haiti are in desperate need of food and medical supplies, the delivery of which has been hindered by severely damaged infrastructure from the 2010 earthquake.

In recent years, humanitarian responses following the earthquake back in 2010 have come under scrutiny. The UN admitted responsibility for the cholera epidemic that emerged in Haiti as a result of the arrival of UN peace officers in the country, who had traveled directly from cholera-infected Nepal. The 2014 documentary entitled Poverty, Inc. addressed the exploitation of U.S. government rice subsidies in the wake of the Haitian tragedy by U.S. farmers. In 2015, an NPR investigative report exposed the squandering of much of the $500 million raised by the American Red Cross to rebuild Haiti, resulting in very little concrete products to show for its fund-raising efforts.

For now, all eyes are on Haiti as aid organizations mobilize  to re-enter the country, balancing both the urgency of the situation on the ground and the consequences of a negligent and careless response in the context of humanitarian crises.