The International Organization for Migration is looking for more relocation sites for the thousands of Haitians left homeless by the massive Jan. 12 earthquake. The first part of IOM’s priority relocation is already completed, the organization says.
More than 4,900 people were moved from a golf course in Port-au-Prince to Coral Cesselesse and approximately 2,400 people were relocated from Vallee de Bourdon to Tabarre Issa, according to an IOM press release.
IOM’s camp management team also launched a new information gathering system to identify the needs of nearly 900 camps in Port-au-Prince.
Meanwhile, Oxfam America highlights a dilemma related to the construction of sanitation facilities in cramped camps in Port-au-Prince. Coco McCabe blogs that Oxfam engineers need to rethink their plans of constructing toilets and latrines in one of the city’s many camps because families are staying on the site of the planned facilities.
“In the small camps that have cropped up across the city, where shelters stand almost on top of each other, space for essentials such as latrines and bathing stalls is at a premium,” McCabe writes. “Any patch of empty earth is also a place a displaced family could pitch a tent, pitting the critical need for protecting public health against the equal imperative of shelter.”
