300 residents of Camp Mormon in the municipality of Delmas in Port-au-Prince, risk a forced eviction within 15 days either within 48 hours, have told to Amnesty International delegates the camp residents, recalling that at 3 am on 14 May, approximately 20 men, including local municipal officials, entered the camp and warned them that they would be forcibly evicted in 15 days time if they did not vacate the land. Some of the men were armed and they opened fire on a group of camp residents, four of whom sustained injuries whilst trying to run for cover. Prior to this incident, residents of Camp Mormon have received numerous threats of eviction and of violence if they did not comply. On 8 February, local municipal officials accompanied by armed men threatened to burn down the camp and shoot residents if they did not leave. Camp residents have filed complaints at the Prosecutor’s Office in relation to both these incidents.

No court order for the eviction or any other legal notice has ever been presented and there has been no adequate consultation with the families or any offer of provision of alternative housing. The residents of Camp Mormon live in improvised shelters, and the camp has poor sanitary conditions and no running water. The camp’s population includes a number of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth, and the majority of families are headed by women.

The families living in Camp Mormon were among the hundreds of thousands who had been left homeless after January 12, 2010 and who had no alternative but to make their own shelters wherever they could. 28 months later, they are among the nearly half a million people still living in makeshift camps where their rights to adequate housing and access to basic services are denied.

Internally displaced persons in at least 60% of the camps are under threat of forced evictions. Thousands of families have already been forcibly evicted since January 2010 without any due process and were made homeless once more. Durable solutions to provide adequate housing to those affected are slow to be implemented.

HL/ HaitiLibre