Haiti profile
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| Map source: OCHA/ReliefWeb |
The country has a history of violence, instability and dictatorship, though democratic rule was restored in 2006 and UN peacekeepers have been deployed there since 1994.
Before the earthquake of January 12th, 2010, the
infrastructure in Haiti was already in a sorry state, and drug
trafficking had corrupted the police and the judicial system. Massive
deforestation had left just two per cent of forested area, making the
country prone to flooding.
The economy was in ruins, unemployment
chronic, and foreign aid considered vital.
Haiti was plagued by violent confrontations between rival gangs and political groups, with the UN describing the human rights situation as “catastrophic”.
Haiti’s most serious underlying, and largely unaddressed, social problem has been the huge wealth gap between the impoverished Creole-speaking black majority and the French-speaking minority, one per cent of who own nearly half the country's wealth.
The 2010 earthquake
On January 12, 2010, a massive 7-0 magnitude earthquake struck just a few miles south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. This was followed quickly by two strong aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.5.
Port-au-Prince was almost completely flattened, with more than 230,000 people killed. About 300,000 people were injured and some 1.3 million left homeless. Water and sanitation, electricity and phone connections were destroyed. Houses, hospitals, health centres, schools, the local UN headquarters building and even a large prison were all brought down.
The airport and seaport were rendered inoperable.
With so many people left homeless, hundreds of spontaneous settlements sprung up around Port-au-Prince. As of January 2012, two years on from the quake, more than half a million people were still living in temporary settlements in the capital and other earthquake areas.
For information about GOAL's work in Haiti, please click here.
Haiti - Fact Box
| Average life expectancy: 62.9 years (female), 59.1 years (male) |
| Infant mortality: 54 per 1,000 births (World Bank, 2009) |
| Children under five years underweight for their age: 22 per cent |
| Population not using an improved water source: 58 per cent |
| People living below the poverty line of US$2 a day: 72.1 per cent |
| Haiti is ranked 149th out of 182 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index (2009) |
The statistics in the Fact Box relate to pre the earthquake of January 12th, 2010 and, unless otherwise stated, have been sourced from the United Nations' Development Report 2009.