Althouse: "Residents who dare leave their homes stumble across bodies that have been left where they fell."

March 9, 2024

"Residents who dare leave their homes stumble across bodies that have been left where they fell."

"Port-au-Prince reached a high of 92 degrees on Friday. The smell of decaying corpses, human rights activists say, has driven some people from their homes.... One morgue director said he has received 20 calls in the past week from residents asking him to pick up bodies. Four calls came in on Friday, Lyonel Milfort said. He has refused all of them. With gangs barricading the streets, Milfort said, venturing out has been impossible.... 'What I’m witnessing today is unprecedented. It’s been too long,' he said. 'It’s heartbreaking to go around and see bodies being eaten by dogs and see the corpses covered with sheets.'..."

From "Haitians shot dead in street and there’s no one to take the corpses away" (WaPo).

40 comments:

gilbar said...: are the Clinton's Haiti millions still okay? I mean, they Should be; they NEVER got to Haiti; 3/9/24, 3:12 PM
cubanbob said...: Haiti has an Army. They should use it and execute the gangsters. In the meantime, unlike J6, this is what an insurrection looks like.; 3/9/24, 3:12 PM
Caroline said...: Unprecedented? I don’t think so. Haiti is a doom loop of death and chaos, ever since they threw off the French Oppressor.; 3/9/24, 3:24 PM
Clyde said...: Sounds like Haiti is reaching peak shithole country.; 3/9/24, 3:25 PM
Aggie said...: But how dare you call it a sh*thole.; 3/9/24, 3:25 PM
Joe Smith said...: I thought the Clintons saved them all?

No?; 3/9/24, 3:49 PM
gspencer said...: As you read these unbelievable stories coming out of Haiti, remember one thing,

ALL CULTURES ARE EQUALLY VALID.; 3/9/24, 3:50 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: White left Biden and his White leftists... will get right on it.; 3/9/24, 4:00 PM
n.n said...: Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform; 3/9/24, 4:07 PM
Joe Smith said...: They killed all the white folks or drove them away.

How's that working out?; 3/9/24, 4:23 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Sounds like scores are being settled. But I recall 25 or so years ago there was a prison riot or takeover in the New Mexico penitentiary. Lots of scores were settled and lots of people were killed. The difference is that the convicts didn't get outside the pen, so the death toll was lower.; 3/9/24, 4:28 PM
Ampersand said...: There's a lesson about human nature in situations such as this. Unfortunately, the resistance to learning that lesson is also a part of human nature. We have to overcome our instinctive reflex to not think about it.
The lesson, by the way, is that evil humans will always exist, and we have to understand that and be prepared to deal with them, or they will destroy us.

Dealing with evil is hard. Screw Rousseau.; 3/9/24, 4:38 PM
ga6 said...: Been o the DR-Haiti border in the spring of 1965 courtesy of bomber Johnson. Dominican side poor but with trees and the basics. Haiti no trees all cut for firewood, people coming to the wire in search of handouts.; 3/9/24, 4:45 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Sounds almost as bad as Gaza, where as Biden said last night, over 30,000 Arabs have been killed, most of them women and children. Almost all of Gaza has been destroyed by Israeli bombing using weapons and ammo provided by the Good ol' USA. We'll now try to get them some food. WHy don't we tell the Israel to open their roads to the UN relief? Oh that's right, they control us, we don't control them. Whatever you say Israel, we're here to serve YOU.

Anyway, Haiti sounds bad. But on the bright side, all the killers and crooks can come to the USA, courtesy of the Biden open borders policy.; 3/9/24, 4:45 PM
ga6 said...: "Haiti has an Army. They should use it and execute the gangsters"

They are the core of the gangsters.; 3/9/24, 4:46 PM
iowan2 said...: I know this is just an excerpt of the story, but is it about the bodies and body count. Not a story about who is doing the killing and why?

Hasn't Biden flown 100K Haitians out of there this year? There part of the Border disaster. Biden said he had to fly them in because it was too busy at the border.; 3/9/24, 5:04 PM
Mary Beth said...: I think we need to get some tips on border security from the Dominican Republic. In spite of everything going on in Haiti, I don't see news about problems in the DR.; 3/9/24, 5:19 PM
Jim said...: Where have you gone
Papa doc Duvalier
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Woo woo woo.; 3/9/24, 5:19 PM
Robert Marshall said...: Recently-fired Harvard President Claudine Gay's family are wealthy Haitians who control the concrete business in that land. Concrete is one of the four pillars of civilization (along with steel, plastics and ammonia (mainly, for fertilizer)). It's not a minor, backwater business, especially in an underdeveloped land like Haiti. It's at the center of business.

So, what has this wealthy family done to help rescue their desperate nation from complete civilizational collapse?

I ask about them because who, better than them, is in a position to know enough, and to know the right folks, and to have the right contacts and stroke, to fix at least some of that mess? (Not the Clintons, that's for sure. They know grift, and that's it.)

What is Claudine doing, herself, with her still nearly-million-dollar per year salary (undiminished, even since being deposed as the University president) and very likely considerable wealth?

And if the wealthy, educated Haitians themselves won't do what's needed, who else could or should? Certainly not the American taxpayers, right?; 3/9/24, 5:22 PM
Robert Marshall said...: PS -

"Haitians shot dead in street and there’s no one to take the corpses away"

Come on, getting rid of corpses is not a complex problem calling for a major bureaucratic mobilization.

You need some shovels, and a bit of grit. Dig, haul the bodies, cover, fill the hole; job done. You might need some jobsite security, but I'd bet there are lots of guns on the streets of Port-Au-Prince, to provide the cover.

Helplessness is not a good look, Haitians.; 3/9/24, 5:29 PM
mongo said...: I’ve never understood why Haitians haven’t overrun their neighbors in the Dominican Republic. It’s got to be better than what they have at home and easier to get to than the USA. Perhaps our resident Caribbean resident, John Henry, has some thoughts. You out there tonight, John?; 3/9/24, 5:32 PM
Paul said...: Haitians don't have a 2nd Amendment... no rights to weapons. And thus the government has guns.. criminals have guns... revolutionaries have guns... but regular citizens... no.

The 2nd Amendment is not about duck hunting.; 3/9/24, 5:44 PM
Tina Trent said...: And now it has been, ever since the colonizers left.

There are some places that do need outside control.; 3/9/24, 5:51 PM
n.n said...: The left-right nexus is leftist. Someone wants an anarchy-forward authoritarian state.; 3/9/24, 6:14 PM
JK Brown said...: Party like it's 1791

Led by former slave Toussaint l’Overture, the enslaved would act first, rebelling against the planters on August 21, 1791. By 1792 they controlled a third of the island. Despite reinforcements from France, the area of the colony held by the rebels grew as did the violence on both sides. Before the fighting ended 100,000 of the 500,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 whites were killed.; 3/9/24, 6:56 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Toussaint Louverture would be rolling in his grave to know that 250 years after he brought about a revolution this is what it has amounted to. The first country to win their independence from their colonial masters would benefit greatly from being colonized.; 3/9/24, 6:58 PM
Narr said...: mongo wonders why the Haitians haven't overrun their neighbors.

They tried back in the 19th C., but were kicked out.

The rotting corpses symbolize the rotten culture as starkly as the contrast between Haiti and the D.R.; 3/9/24, 7:25 PM
chuck said...: Clinton's legacy. I always thought he screwed up, and screwed Haiti, when he took down the coup.; 3/9/24, 7:41 PM
Butkus51 said...: I wonder why Haiti is horrendous?

So many mysteries.; 3/9/24, 8:38 PM
Dr Weevil said...: "The first country to win their independence from their colonial masters" was Haiti? No, it was the fifteenth: the thirteen original colonies and Vermont did so before Haiti. Where does Rich live that he could possibly not know that? Inner Mongolia?; 3/9/24, 8:56 PM
Narayanan said...: Haiti Independence Debt
France ordered Haiti to pay the 150 million francs over a period of five years, with the first annual payment of 30 million francs being six times larger than Haiti's yearly revenue,
=================
where is Crack to remark on these reverse reparations?; 3/9/24, 9:07 PM
Narayanan said...: American ignorance is vast and unchaarted; 3/9/24, 9:09 PM
Narayanan said...: Haiti Independence Debt
France ordered Haiti to pay the 150 million francs over a period of five years, with the first annual payment of 30 million francs being six times larger than Haiti's yearly revenue,
=================
where is Crack to remark on these reverse reparations?

American ignorance is vast and unchaarted; 3/9/24, 9:09 PM
~ Gordon Pasha said...: Haiti's been cursed since the Haitian Genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haitian_massacre; 3/9/24, 9:31 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: The corpses are already in hell. No need to move them.; 3/9/24, 9:32 PM
Mark said...: Sadly, civilization must be chosen and peoples must govern their own behavior. It cannot be imposed.; 3/9/24, 10:53 PM
Hassayamper said...: Almost all of Gaza has been destroyed by Israeli bombing using weapons and ammo provided by the Good ol' USA. We'll now try to get them some food. WHy don't we tell the Israel to open their roads to the UN relief? Oh that's right, they control us, we don't control them. Whatever you say Israel, we're here to serve YOU.

Why don't the fucking Egyptians take care of their co-religionists in Gaza? They share a border about 7 miles long, very well-fortified by the way, and could easily provide all necessary supplies out of the many billions of dollars we give them every year.

Whenever anyone deplores "Israel's blockade of Gaza" without mentioning that Egypt has also blockaded the Gaza Strip, you can be certain you are talking to an anti-Semite.; 3/10/24, 1:27 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Not unlike Chicago.; 3/10/24, 10:43 AM
PM said...: Likely the fence stopping Haitians from entering the DR is festooned with depictions of snarling, horned devils.; 3/10/24, 5:26 PM
Biff said...: JK Brown said..."Party like it's 1791"

I think an Althouse commenter once recommended Mike Duncan's "History of Rome" podcast. I hadn't heard of it before, and I became a fan.

Allow me to follow up with a recommendation of Mike Duncan's "Revolutions" podcast. His episodes on Haiti, starting with episode 4.01, are compelling...and heartbreaking...and horrifying.

(I'm not sharing a link because it is available from most podcast providers. Pick your favorite, and do a search.); 3/11/24, 4:37 PM