LOUISVILLE, KY.
— His legs are paralyzed, he can’t work and he barely leaves his small
Louisville apartment – but what troubles Marcelous Pierre most is his
family’s desperate plight back home in Haiti. Three
years after the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake killed one of his
children and severed his spinal cord, leaving him a medical refugee in
Louisville, Pierre said his wife and three surviving children still live
in a leaky tent, eking out a meager existence.
“That’s
my concern, my family,” said Pierre, 38, one of at least eight injured
Haitians who were treated and then resettled in Louisville after the 7.0
magnitude earthquake – one of the hemisphere’s deadliest natural
disasters. “After all the (recovery aid) money they put in … my family
is still in a tent.” Pierre’s
plight is a stark reminder of the massive upheaval that continues to
plague Haiti as a result of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that killed
tens of thousands, left nearly a million homeless and spurred many
Louisville residents, donors, aid groups and doctors to help.
On
this third anniversary, local refugees and aid groups working in the
impoverished Caribbean island nation say recovery is still painfully
slow, despite billions in aid donations, including funds that remain
undistributed. An
estimated 357,785 Haitians still live in 496 tent camps, according to a
recent report by The New York Times. Others have moved to shanties or
slums. Cholera, widespread joblessness and other woes still grip the
nation.
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