Haiti

Coronavirus Cases Confirmed In Dominican Republic, Caribbean Islands Put Vulnerable Region At Risk

By Jim Wyss & Jaqueline Charles / Miami Herald • Mar 2, 2020

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

The first confirmed cases of coronavirus are being reported in the Caribbean, after authorities in the Dominican Republic on Sunday confirmed that an Italian national was checked into a Santo Domingo hospital over the weekend.

Haiti's Carnival Shooting, Florida Primary History, Solar Energy & Everglades Black History

By Alejandra Martinez • Feb 25, 2020

On this Tuesday, Feb. 25, episode of Sundial:

Haiti’s Carnival shooting

A protest in Haiti over police pay and working conditions ended in an exchange of gunfire between Haiti’s National Police force and the country's armed forces.

Bernard Diederich, Legendary Caribbean Correspondent And Author: 1926-2020

By Tim Padgett • Jan 15, 2020

One of the greatest journalists to cover the Caribbean has died. Bernard Diederich passed away Tuesday at age 93 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Diederich’s pioneering, award-winning coverage helped make the world more aware of the Caribbean basin’s importance.

Haiti In Ruins: A Look Back At The 2010 Earthquake

By editor • Jan 12, 2020

Editor's note: This story contains images that some readers may find disturbing.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti in Jan. 12, 2010, left 220,000 people dead, 300,000 injured and rubble nearly everywhere.

A 'Lost Decade': Haiti Still Struggles To Recover 10 Years After Massive Earthquake

By Carrie Kahn & Jeffrey Pierre • Jan 12, 2020

On the wind-whipped hills north of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, Berthenid Dasny holds the keys to the gated memorial erected for Haiti's earthquake victims. Thousands of bodies are buried here in a mass grave dug after a magnitude 7 earthquake shook the country on Jan. 12, 2010.

"They've forgotten about this place; it should look better than this," Dasny says as she walks past the overgrown grass, rusted metal statues and brittle brush. For the past year, she has been the memorial's groundskeeper, though she has never been paid.

'Still Traumatized, Expecting Another Disaster': Remembering The Haiti Quake After 10 Years

By Alejandra Martinez • Jan 9, 2020

Ten years ago, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, causing apocalyptic damage in the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities.

To Rebuild From Its Disastrous Earthquake, Haiti Has To Rebuild Its Disastrous Governance

By Tim Padgett • Jan 8, 2020

COMMENTARY

This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the apocalyptic 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti and killed as many as 200,000 people. There’ll be a lot of soul-searching about why the country has made so little recovery progress a full decade later. But if we want to understand that sad, infuriating state of affairs, we’re observing the wrong anniversary.

Haiti 10 Years After The Earthquake: Why So Little Recovery Progress In A Decade?

By Tim Padgett • Jan 6, 2020

Port-au-Prince was a canyon of crushed concrete and horrified screams as Jean Samson Edouard ran panicked and barefoot through the capital’s Carrefour-Feuilles district.

It was shortly before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010 — a decade ago this Sunday. A magnitude-7.0 earthquake had just destroyed much of Haiti — and killed anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people, according to most estimates (although the Haitian government had put the toll as high as 300,000).

Latin America And The Caribbean 2019: From Fire In The Streets To Ire In The Skies

By Tim Padgett • Dec 30, 2019

It's hard to wrap your arms around everything that happened 2019 in Latin America and the Caribbean. It's even harder to find any good news — from the violent political unrest that rocked capitals from La Paz to Port-au-Prince, to a record number of fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest.

Haiti Wants To Reform Its Energy Sector. So Police Showed Up To Arrest Power Providers

By JACQUELINE CHARLES • Dec 16, 2019

A former Haitian government prosecutor is calling the attempted arrest of the widow of late Haitian President René Préval and the director of an independent power provider, illegal and harassment.

“There is nothing technical here. It’s all political,” said Jean Danton Léger, an ex chief prosecutor who currently represents the company Société Générale d’Énergie SA (Sogener), one of three independent power providers in Haïti that produces then sells electricity to state-owned Electricité d’Haïti (EDH) under a 2005 contract.

Haitian Diaspora Expresses Frustrations With U.S. Haiti Policy at Congressional Hearing

By Tim Padgett • Dec 10, 2019

The House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington held a hearing Tuesday on the worsening crisis in Haiti. Haitian expats, some from Miami, expressed frustrations with Trump Administration policy towards Haiti.

Outside The Hype Of Miami Art Week, Local Haitian Musicians Reach Thousands of MDC Kids

By Lily Oppenheimer • Dec 6, 2019

With Miami Art Week in full swing, there’s a lot of art galleries and shows geared towards travelers descending upon South Florida. Some of the highlights have been a giant, contorted “Bent Pool” that arches over Pride Park, and a life-sized traffic jam sculpted out of sand near Lincoln Road.

Mutiny Over Cooking Charcoal In Haiti Prison Led To Gang Rapes, Human-Rights Groups Say

By Jacqueline Charles • Nov 22, 2019

VALERIE BAERISWYL / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

It started around noon, when male detainees inside a prison for men and women north of Haiti’s capital heard there was no charcoal or propane gas to cook their food, and began violently protesting prison conditions and attempting to escape.

By the time it was over and the jail break had been stopped by Haiti National Police, at least one inmate was dead, several others had been injured and 10 female detainees, including a 15-year-old teen girl and 62-year-old woman, had been gang raped, two Haiti-based human rights groups said.

Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat's New Collection of Stories Explores 'Gap Between Life And Death'

By Alejandra Martinez • Nov 12, 2019

In a short story by Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat a man sees his life flash before his eyes as he falls 500 feet from the sky.

"It's a story that is meant to be compressed in those seconds that he's falling," says Danticat on Sundial. There's a list of thoughts that goes through the man's mind: love, loss and regret. And the burning image of his son.

Rare Calm In Haiti As Thousands Seek Free Medical Care From U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Comfort

By JACQUELINE CHARLES • Nov 8, 2019

Kisley Jeannot / COURTESY OF US EMBASSY HAITI

One man needed a hernia operation that he could not afford. A young girl came to seek help for her 3-year-old cousin whose skin was inexplicably covered with sores. And a mother of four needed help with a chronic allergy reaction.

They all took the chance to travel miles away from home to the Haitian Coast Guard base Killick on Thursday in search of medical care from the U.S. Navy ship Comfort, the floating U.S. naval hospital that arrived Monday. It was a rare calm following two months of sustained protests, burning tires and impassable barricades.

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