Caribbean hurricanes wreak havoc on children
Hurricane Irma has already put hundreds of thousands of children at risk, with the poorest suffering its consequences the most.
The category 5 hurricane has caused massive damage in parts of the Eastern Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba, affecting homes, schools, health centres and basic infrastructures across the Caribbean. In its relentless path, more than 270,000 children have been directly affected, the great majority already living in the most vulnerable communities, who are now bracing for another catastrophic hurricane, Maria.
The Five Cays settlement of Providenciales, in Turks and Caicos Islands, is one of these vulnerable communities. The vast majority of the families living here are Haitian nationals of irregular migrant status.
“I made this bridge myself,” explains 7-year-old Anastasia Chairet.
5-month-old baby Recca Chery sits in his mother’s lap outside his home. A buzzing cloud of mosquitoes hungrily gather around him.
“There are so many mosquitoes, day and night, that it is impossible to rest. What worries me most is that my baby can get sick,” admits Berline.
A few minutes away from baby Recca’s there is another house where Tashlee Beltheus, 14, and Tayina Beltheus, 15, live.
“One part of the house lost the roof. The other part is so messed up that I do not know how to describe it,” explains 15-year-old Tayina Beltheus.
Just jumping in a 25 minutes flight from Providenciales, you will arrive to Grand Turk Island. In one of the hills lives a family who have suffered the rage of the storm.
“The water system is not working, so we have to fetch water from a container up the hill. It is dirty, yellow, so we have to put bleach in it. We are mainly using it for washing and cleaning but we are running out of water,” says 15-year-old Katy Sobrina Estime.
“Since the storm everything has changed. Everything got wet and destroyed… my electronic equipment, my computer. Some people say that in November I will go back to school,” says Clefedlin Sait Juste, 12. “If I were rich I would donate to poor people. To help them out with the hurricane.”
“Wake up, wake up!
But 5:32?
Why the hell am I waking up at 5:32?
Ma, what’s going on?
What do you want me to do?
Did something happen to be up at 5:32?
She is finally over,
Hurricane Irma is finally done,” 14-year-old Danessa Estime writes Rap lyrics in her notebook.
“The night of the hurricane was horrible. We were not in the house. All the children in the neighborhood slept at the shelter (school). We do not have enough food, and if we had we wouldn’t have any place to store it anyway,” says 11-year old Renalson Pervil.
On Grand Turk Island, in a street lined with severely damaged houses, brothers Avante Harvey, 9, and Arlon Harvey, 7, live with their parents. The tree in front of their house was uprooted by the strong winds. The whole roof collapsed, flooding and destroying everything inside.
Thousands of children are having their education disrupted, as schools across Cuba, Turks and Caicos Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Barbuda are damaged.
“I really hope the school classes resume very soon,” says Gwella Aneston, 15, proudly showing one of her Math Trophies.
Little by little families are staring to rebuild their homes and their lives, but each island affected in the Eastern Caribbean has a different set of needs, with water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education being UNICEF’s main priorities and concerns.
Working closely with the Government, UN agencies and NGO partners, UNICEF is on the ground and has already deployed additional staff and humanitarian supplies, including water purification tablets, hygiene kits, tents and educational material for affected children and their families.
UNICEF is appealing for US$15M to support its humanitarian response to Caribbean islands devastated by Hurricane Irma. Further information on the appeal can be found here: https://support.unicef.org/node/811
