Category Archives: Caribbean

Scenes of natural disaster and human suffering have filled the television screens of the western world for the past week as rich countries band together to offer assistance in the aftermath of one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the Asian tsunami of 2004.

I visited the northeast of Haiti in December of 1998.

I remember the border checkpoint with the Dominican Republic, its more prosperous neighbour. The Haitian side of the bridge was blocked off with a fence of slatted wood. A Dominican solider trained a machinegun and an uneasy eye on the shouting people crushed up against the fence by the sheer weight of desperation pressing in behind them. Each time the gate was opened to admit a new entrant, several more tried to shove their way through, only to be beaten back by men with clubs.