HAITI：
HAITI FAMILIES “WILL NOT BE FORCIBLY EVICTED”

Additional Information

Over the past few months the tension has been rising in the camp and the authorities have so far failed to protect the hundreds of families that built makeshift shelters at Grace Village after the January 2010 earthquake.

The landowner has prohibited humanitarian organizations from providing assistance to the inhabitants at Grace Village camp. Basic services are also being denied and the landowner has not allowed the camp residents to clean the latrines and dispose the trash outside the camp and it has to be burnt on site. Residents believe this is a strategy to push them to the limit and force them to leave the camp.

Twenty-eight months after the devastating earthquake, nearly half a million people are 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 per cent of the camps are under threat of forced evictions. Thousands of families have already been forcibly evicted since the earthquake without any due process and were made homeless once more. Durable solutions to provide adequate housing to those affected are slow to be implemented.

A representative of the man claiming to be the landowner of Grace Village camp in

Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince has promised that residents will be not be forcibly evicted. There are still concerns for the security of the camp’s residents.

Following a request for a meeting, on 22 May an Amnesty International delegation which is currently in Haiti met with a representative of the man claiming to be the owner of the land where Grace Village camp, in the Carrefour area of Metropolitan Port-au-Prince, is located. The representative claimed that residents living in 14 tents that have been marked for demolition were actually being moved to another part of the camp, and gave assurances that no residents would be forcibly evicted from the camp. According to the representative, the approximately 30 shelters that had been demolished during the night of 28 April were unoccupied, but this has been refuted by camp residents.

He also rejected claims that residents were being denied access to drinking water and claimed that waste was appropriately disposed of each month, but a big heap of rubbish was being burnt on site at the time of the Amnesty International delegates’ visit to the camp. The representative also claimed that the 10pm curfew was in place for the inhabitants’ safety and the entry permits which they are forced to carry is used to ensure that non-residents do not access the site, again for security reasons.

Amnesty International nevertheless remains concerned that camp residents may continue to be threatened and intimidated by armed security guards and the camp manager employed by the alleged landowner. Amnesty International is currently stopping this action but will be monitoring the situation closely with the help of local partners. The organization reiterates its calls for the families of Grace Village camp to be provided with a durable solution to their housing needs. The residents wish to leave the land they are currently occupying but any relocation process must respect their rights to adequate housing and not to be subjected to forced evictions.

No more action is required from the Urgent Action Network at this time. Many thanks to all of those who sent appeals. Amnesty International will continue to monitor the situation and will take further action if necessary.

This is the first update of UA: 135/12 Issue Date: 25 May 2012. Further information: http://amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR36/003/2012/en

Name: Hundreds of families
Gender m/f: Both