Haiti six months after disaster

In a series marking the January earthquake, The National returns to Haiti. Tomorrow, we examine the effect the lack of a working government has on the day-to-day lives of Haitians.

PORT-AU-PRINCE // Living in a tiny tarpaulin shack with two children, only metres from the crumpled remains of the once-majestic National Palace, surviving on handouts from benevolent relatives, Clermene Caneus, 37, has little faith that her floundering government or the many aid organisations that have flocked to the Caribbean since the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12 will be able to fix the long-standing woes of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. "Government officials come by every day or so but we never see any results," she says. "I don't expect anything to change. In six months, or one year, I'm still going to be here, hoping that somebody else can help me get some money." Half a year after the earthquake levelled much of Haiti's capital, aid groups, western donors and the UN face the possibility that they are in a no-win situation in which the recovery is being led by a government struggling to meet the challenge. In a series marking the January earthquake, The National returns to Port-au-Prince. Tomorrow, we examine the effect the lack of a working government has on the day-to-day lives of Haitians. On Saturday, we talk to some of the many people who were forced to have limbs amputated in the aftermath of the quake. Other stories will look at the use of new technologies in disasters, the plight of children, and the growing threat of sexual violence faced by women. Read it in The National, available across the UAE.