Tag: International Organization for Migration

The scene should hugely embarrass all Israelis and supporters of Israel: tens of thousands of African immigrants demonstrating, demanding to be treated as human beings within a state that claimed to be created as a safe haven for immigrants. The lie is exposed for all to see. African refugees are striving to receive attention from the international community in hopes that it might help push Israelis to provide them the opportunity to live in peace within Israel.

Mathias O is 34 years old. He is one of about 600,000 people still homeless from the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He lives with his wife and her 2-year-old under a homemade shelter made out of several tarps. They sleep on the rocky ground inside. The side tarp walls are reinforced by pieces of cardboard boxes taped together. Candles provide the only inside light at night. There is no running water. No electricity. They live near a canal and suffer from lots of mosquitoes.

While thousands of mostly Black migrant workers fleeing the rebels' anti-Black racism are trapped in refugee camps on the Tunisian border, aid workers lounge in tourist hotels, Tripoli endures nightly bombings and the DIGNITY Delegation visits the Qaddafis' home hit on April 30 by bunker buster bombs fired from a U.S. warplane. Their son Seif and three small grandchildren were killed in the airstrike aimed at Col. Qaddafi, who was in the yard tending to animals in the children's petting zoo.

One year after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, more than a million people remain homeless in Haiti. People are living under plastic tarps or sheets in concrete parks, up to the edge of major streets, in the side streets, on the sides of hills, literally everywhere. One year later, it is critically important for the international community to assist Haitians to secure real housing. The million homeless Haitians are our sisters and brothers and still need our solidarity and help.

Cholera, a "disease of poverty" caused by lack of access to clean water, has spread to Haiti's capital city of Port au Prince. At a small, desolate camp of ripped tents nearby, a gleaming water tank is propped up on bricks. But it’s empty.

In the weeks since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, familiar patterns of interference and neglect by the major powers that dominate the country are firmly entrenched. Notwithstanding heroic efforts of ordinary Haitian people, Haitian government officials and agencies and many international organizations, a grave health risk hovers over the people and the direction of Haiti’s reconstruction remains entirely undetermined.