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A gang member aims an imaginary gun at a rival of an enemy gang in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti
Photo: Rodrigo Abd / AP
Nobody is safe in Haiti.
There have been 789 kidnappings since the beginning of this year, a world record.
It can affect anyone, business people, children, cleaning staff.
The ransom is between $ 50 and a million.
The situation has been particularly dramatic since the incumbent President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in the summer: the gangs have been able to expand their power since then.
"The situation escalated within a few months," says Annalisa Lombardo from Welthungerhilfe on site.
Mutually hostile groups control residential areas in Port-au-Prince, streets, the port and access to fuel supplies.
"There has always been poverty in Haiti," says Christina Böhrer of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), "but what really breaks people is the constant danger and violence." MSF operates several clinics in the country.
In an emergency clinic in the capital alone, around 30 gunshot wounds per week were recently registered and treated.
19,000 people have had to flee in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince since August last year, when gang violence once escalated.
They had to leave their homes because it became too dangerous there.
Today they live in completely overcrowded buildings and halls in the poor areas of the city.
Haiti is a state in a permanent state of emergency: The country is one of the poorest in the world.
Most recently, another earthquake destroyed around 130,000 houses in the southwest in the summer of 2021.
Many families are still homeless.
In addition, around 8,000 Haitians have been deported back to their homeland from the USA since September.
The photographer Rodrigo Abd visited Haiti's capital for four weeks. He photographed orphanages and gangs, but also business people and models. "It was important to me not only to photograph misery and suffering," says Abd. He also wants to show "how people try to maintain something like a normal life in this country".
But his job was not easy: "Most people no longer wanted to have their faces photographed," says Abd, who traveled to the country years ago.
Even the gang members are scared.
In addition, there is also a general loss of confidence: »People once believed that pictures could help them.
That the presence of foreign actors and organizations can help them, "said Abd," but they were bitterly disappointed.
Their lives have not gotten better, just more difficult. "
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