This week, the people of Haiti paused to mark the one year anniversary of the quake that devastated much of their country.

But Haitians have little time to dwell on the past. The present is full of challenges still. About a million people remain homeless — most living in makeshift camps.

Only a small fraction of the quake rubble has been cleared. And there’s also an ongoing cholera epidemic complicating things.

Haitians living in the US also face an additional challenge now. The Obama administration had suspended all deportations to Haiti in the quake’s aftermath last year. That is now about to change.

The deportation process has already begun.

About one hundred Haitians have been transported from South Florida to Louisiana.
The move is considered one of the last steps before people are put on a plane back to Haiti, where they will likely be jailed.

Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, called the current situation “insanity.”

“It’s insanity,” she said, “to deport Haitians back to a country still reeling from the quake and struggling to contain a cholera epidemic.”

Caroline Bettinger-Lopez is director of the Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of Miami. She said conditions in Haiti are deplorable.

“When Haitians were deported routinely placed in holding cells in conditions highly unsanitary, rodent infested, no beds … they have to sleep standing with arm tied to the window to prevent yourself from falling down.”

And Bettinger-Lopez said it’s especially dangerous now that the cholera epidemic is raging through the country. She said over 48 individuals in Haitian detention centres have died.

The deportations aren’t just troubling for the roughly 350 Haitians in US detention – or for their families.

The spectre of being sent back to Haiti is also terrifying the tens of thousands Haitians living or working in the US without legal documents.

Fritz, who did not want to use his last name, came to the US with his family after the quake. The family was at a press conference in Miami yesterday.

When it was their turn to speak, Fritz, his wife and their two young daughters started weeping. After sympathetic murmurs and a few and tissues, Fritz, began speaking softly in Creole.

Fritz described the horrible conditions his family faced in Haiti after the quake. He said they came to the US simply to survive.

Cheryl Little – the immigration advocate – said the Obama administration is putting Haitians in an awful position.

“We should not be having to look at families and telling them we don’t know what’s going to happen, we don’t know if they are going to be sent back to Haiti, we don’t know if they are going to be given work permits so they can support their families,” Little said.

Groups opposing the deportation said Haiti is not equipped to deal with thousands of families who will need water, food and shelter.

Randy Mcroroty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services in Miami, said any time and money invested in sending people back to Haiti is a diversion from helping the country rebuild.

“If they are not going to be on the street, they are going to be housed somewhere at some expense to someone, money spent on Haitian prisons could be better spent on foods and water right now,” he said.

McRorety said the best form of aide the Obama administration could give Haiti is to keep the detainees in the US

The looming deportations are making an already mistrustful Haitian community even more wary of government interaction.

Haitians have all but stopped applying for Temporary Protective Status, or TPS.
That’s a special designation for Haitians who were in the US before the quake. It gives them temporary permission to live and work in the US legally.

The deadline to apply for TPS is January 18.

The Department of Homeland Security has not commented on TPS, the deportations or really much of anything relating to the Haitians’ situation.

Spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez would not speak on the record. She would not say when the deportations will start. Nor would she say what crimes the Haitian detainees have been convicted of.

Many, including Cheryl Little asked the same thing: “Why is our country doing this, and why now?”

That’s another question the Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t answer.

Haitians in America: coverage on The World:
• A Haitian student in New York
• Haitian earthquake survivor in the US
• Haitians crossing over from Canada

USCIS: Green Card Through the Help Haiti Act of 2010

Many survivors still live in camps (Photo: Jeb Sharp)

by Jeb Sharp

A year later the landscape is still scarred and the stories are still raw. Lizina Bovoi was in her second story apartment when the building collapsed around her. She managed to crawl out through the debris. Now she lives in a camp. She says all the aid money she hears about certainly isn’t flowing her way. She blames the politicians.

“We don’t have a government,” Bovoi said. “We don’t have a leader who’s going to fight to get us out of here. ”

It’s a common refrain. Many Haitians assume the government is stealing money intended for them. Bovoi says foreigners come to ask questions, but no one from the government ever does.

“You’re American, right?” Bovoi asked. “You paid for a plane ticket, and for a taxi to come to the tent camp to ask me how I’m living. But no Haitian has come to ask how I’m doing. That’s sad. ”

Former prime minister Michele Pierre-Louis feels that political vacuum as well.

“I think the Haitian people wanted to see what’s going to happen for them,” said Pierre-Louis. “It’s true that the conditions were difficult before but can you imagine how many people lost everything they had? And nobody’s really talking to them.”

The 63-year-old Pierre-Louis says she’s never felt as low as she has this past year. She lost 30 pounds in the weeks after the earthquake. She simply couldn’t eat.

“I’ve never felt what deep down I felt when this earthquake occurred, in terms of the sense of despair, of devastation and knowing the difficulty we were going to have to get out of it.”

Georgette Jean-Louis feels the enormity of the challenges as well. She’s the chief operating officer of the microlending organization Fonkoze.

“Every time there is a drop of rain I remember those millions of people still on the street of Port au Prince,” said Jean-Louis. “It is really heart-breaking. You see children, young women, men, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, the way they live, it is unhuman.”

Those images make it hard to rest she says.

“You know after a hard day of work everyone would like to go home and sleep fine, sleep well. You don’t want to have that pinch in your heart. Because I love when it rains. I have grass in my backyard. I would like it to rain so I can enjoy the rain. But you can’t have that peace of mind.”

Jean-Louis says Haiti needs action, not promises. Just build something she says–roads, schools, hospitals–anything to get the jobs and money flowing. But that kind of building is what is so glaringly not happening at this one-year mark. Julie Schindall is with Oxfam in Haiti. She’s disappointed.

It’s not so much disappointment for myself,” said Schindall. “But for all of the Haitians that I know. I think a year and you’re still living in a tent? Sometimes when you ask the question they give you the response which is like the classic rejoinder in this country, ‘Bienvenue en Haiti.’  ‘Welcome to Haiti.’ It’s said with so much irony about well, this is typical here. I think one year on, and maybe this is idealistic, or the view of a foreigner who hasn’t been worn down, but I think that’s unacceptable.”

So do the folks living in the tents. Roseline Jean washes a tub of clothes outside her shelter. She lost her father and her sister and a cousin in the earthquake. She gave birth to her second child seven days after it. Now she lives under a tarp, with no door to lock, in a camp where she doesn’t feel safe. She gives a bitter look when I ask her what she wants Americans to know about what’s happening here.

“It doesn’t help to tell people,” Jean said. “People come by all the time to talk to us. They say they’re going to pass the message on, but nothing comes of all the messages we’ve been sending.”

With that, Jean turns back to her laundry.

• Haiti’s slow reconstruction
• Dealing with Haiti’s cholera victims
• A new plan for job growth in Haiti
• Rebuilding Haiti
• President Bill Clinton is tweeting from Haiti Tuesday & Wednesday

By Jeb Sharp

Cholera coordinator Rochefort Saint-Louis (Photo: Jeb Sharp)

It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about the bodies until I heard about public health worker Rochefort Saint-Louis. His official title is cholera coordinator for western Haiti, but basically he collects bodies. He locates them, disinfects them, seals them in plastic body bags, and trucks them to a designated burial ground. The point is to minimize the spread of cholera.

Saint-Louis tells me that the bodies are very dangerous. “People throw them in the street and they have fluid inside them,” he says. “If the fluid comes out and you step on it,” he adds, you could track it home. You might put your hands in your mouth or your kid could touch your shoes.

I meet Saint-Louis in downtown Port au Prince at what used to be a public park. It’s now a tent city. He’s waiting for me in a little white van with its hazard lights flashing. There’s a piece of paper taped to the window that says Emergency Operations Center. It’s 10 in the morning and he’s already picked up 6 bodies.

Saint-Louis has two colleagues with him. Before we enter the park they put on latex gloves, face masks and bright yellow protective suits. They hoist tanks of chlorinated water onto their backs with spray nozzles attached. I follow their bulky shapes through the narrow passageways between tents and tarps and makeshift shacks.

We’re here to pick up the body of a three month old baby named Jenny who died in the night. We find her laid out on a bed in her mother’s shack. Her eyes are sunken and cloudy.

There’s no ceremony to it—the men simply get to work, dousing Jenny’s body with the chlorine solution and gently tucking cotton wool into her ears. “We make sure we close all the holes in the body of the baby,” Saint-Louis says, “the ears, the mouth so the body won’t leak the fluid. That’s how cholera spreads.”

Once that’s done the health workers place the tiny corpse into a plastic body bag and zip it up. Jenny’s 24-year-old mother Kattia Alexis waits outside the tent. She seems dazed. She tells us the baby was fine yesterday, happy and smiling. Then suddenly she was sick with vomiting and diarrhea. The mother says she didn’t realize the baby was sick with cholera until it was too late.

Saint-Louis, the body collector, doesn’t linger. That’s partly because his two cell phones keep ringing. But it’s also because families sometimes have a hard time parting with the bodies, and Saint-Louis doesn’t want any trouble.

(photo: Jeb Sharp)

The men put Jenny’s little corpse in the back of a second white van. No one talks about her. We wash our hands and spray the soles of our feet with the chlorine solution before heading off to find the next body. It’s at a neighborhood health clinic on a busy road leading out of the city.

The crew gets straight to work to disinfect the body. It’s of a 35 year old man called Marcso St. Felix. Like the baby, he only fell ill the night before. His family brought him to the clinic but it was closed. They tried to flag someone down on the road to take him to hospital but no one would do it. He spent the night dying on the sidewalk.

When the clinic opened in the morning they tried to hydrate him but it was too late. The health workers lay the corpse in a body bag and zip it up. Then they put the bag inside another one and zip that up. They take the body outside. I ask Saint-Louis if he’s ever afraid of catching cholera himself. “Afraid?” he says. “No, I’m not afraid. I know how to protect myself.” Then he laughs. “One of my guys caught cholera from not being careful,” he says. “He was in hospital for seven days. He’ll be back at work next week.”

I ask Saint-Louis what the biggest challenge is with the cholera epidemic. He tells me it’s the lack of education and information. “When I go to pick up a body, sometimes the family tries to fight,” he says. “They deny their relatives have cholera. They blame the vodou man for infecting the water. The government needs to educate people. But don’t attack me; I’m trying to prevent cholera, not spread cholera.”
As if on cue, five angry men show up next to the van. They are friends and relatives of the man who died. They’re angry the clinic wasn’t open last night. They deny St. Felix died of cholera, and they accuse the government of kidnapping the body.

Saint-Louis quietly signals to his men to take the van with the bodies and leave. Then he reasons with the group as best he can, but it’s not easy. Everyone is on edge in this ravaged city. These men are grieving the loss of a loved one, but it’s hard not to think they’re grieving a whole lot more as well.

As the commotion recedes, I ask Saint-Louis where he’s headed next. He pauses, grins, and says it’s time for lunch. He’s going to treat himself with the ten dollars he found in the dead man’s trousers.
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(Audio available after 5PM Eastern)

• Read Jeb’s reporter’s notebook from Haiti
• Haiti coverage on The World

• The BBC’s Mike Thomson, who reported from Haiti just after the earthquake, returns a year later
• NY Times multimedia: moving forward in Haiti
• Plan International Haiti blog

Haitian women at USAID-funded transitional shelter in Port-au-Prince (Photo: USAID)

People are grieving, they’re traumatized, they’re tired, they’re frustrated, they’re angry at the lack of visible progress reconstructing Haiti, whether it’s moving people out of tents and back into homes, fixing roads, rebuilding public buildings, or tackling the country’s enormous infrastructure deficit. A woman in a camp yesterday said, “We keep hearing about all these billions of dollars in aid but we don’t see a penny of it”. She blamed the government for not doing more but until the country’s electoral crisis is resolved, the government is unlikely to move forward on urgently-needed reconstruction projects.

But even with all the anger and frustration and grief, life goes on, and it’s not as if nothing is being accomplished. You can hear the sounds of building around the city, non-governmental organizations are working hard to tackle the cholera crisis, parts of the economy are humming with dollars from outside that accompany the huge influx of aid workers and others who are here to help Haiti recover. And there are people who see a silver lining or two. In the days after the earthquake there was a sense of Haitians coming together, even across the stark divisions of class that mark this society. People slept in the open without fear of strangers because everyone was facing what felt like an apocalyptic moment together. Several people have described the earthquake as a moment when the world seemed to be coming to an end. That togetherness has receded, but having glimpsed it, some Haitians want to reach for it again, to try to harness it for a greater good.

And I’ve met young educated Haitians here who are thrilled by some of the opportunities presented by the influx of outside money and the chance to learn and practice English and other languages. There’s a sobering side to that influx though. One young woman in Leogane told me aid workers there are turning young girls into prostitutes. She has had the means and the presence to fight off unwanted advances but not so some of her friends. And there’s resentment, too, that NGO workers make good money, much of which is cycled back into foreign economies, not the Haitian one.

I’m halfway through my time here, with a head swirling with stories from two dozen interviews with a wide range of Haitians. I’m struck by their suffering but also by their grace, dignity, tenacity, courage and hope. Listen for their voices in the radio stories I’ll be filing over the course of the next week or so.

By Sabri Ben-Achour of station WAMU

(Photo: Sabri Ben-Achour)

But it didn’t go to her bank account — she doesn’t have one, and she can’t afford one. It went to her phone. The phone is a bank account. You don’t write checks, you send text messages. This is mobile money.

Haiti isn’t known as a leader in finance or technology. But some of the country’s poorest residents are leading the way to new system of cell phone-based banking.

Kokoévi Sossouvi is in charge of economic recovery for the aid group, Mercy Corps, which is operating in Haiti. Sossouvi has been crisscrossing the countryside, from one packed town meeting to another, explaining how the cell phone banking works.

“We’re trying to give people access to financial services, so they can save money, have a safe way to store their hard earned cash, so they can make transactions,” Sossouvi said.

At a standing-room only crowd at one meeting, Sossouvi asks, “Is there anyone here who has a cell phone?”

About half the crowd yells out: “Yes.” Mobile phones are common in Haiti. About 40 percent of people have one, but only 10 percent have bank accounts. They’re considered expensive, and not worth the trouble for small amounts of money.

According to Sossouvi, using cell phones to transfer funds will make things much simpler for Haiti’s small merchants. They’ll be able to move their inventory around much faster, she said.

“You can phone your suppliers and say, send this to me on the next TapTap, here’s your money, I’ll pick it up and have my sale,” Sossouvi said. “It’s just going to make commerce simpler.”

(Photo: Sabri Ben-Achour)

“What if we collect all these electronic bonds and the bank goes out of business?” Adeline asked.

Larousse has his doubts too. He says, sometimes when you talk on the phone, you hear the lines cross. Could that happen with the money?

Sossouvi of Mercy Corps said these concerns are completely understandable and that in the training, they tell people that their money is going to be transferred safely through the phone.

“They turn around and say to us ‘it better come out of that phone!’ “Sossouvi said. “’My money better come out of that phone! I don’t know what that story is but my money better come out of that damn phone!’ And then the second time they cash out, they say ‘is there any chance I can keep some money on the phone because it’s actually kind of convenient’.”

And it’s more secure than cash, said Charles Duthard, who sat in the front row of one of the town meetings.

“When you have cash, somebody can rob you if they see what you have in your hand,” Duthard said. “But this way nobody has any idea how much you have.”

And even if someone takes your phone, they won’t have your personal identification number.

Mercy Corps is partnering with Voila, Haiti’s second largest cell phone network, and Unibank, one of the country’s largest banks to offer the mobile money service. The banks hope it can get more money circulating through the banking system.

The government could conceivably use it to make tax collection more efficient. And Mercy Corps has its own reasons for wanting to shift to mobile money. Project manager Andrew Lucas said the group hands out 20,000 emergency food vouchers a month.

“It takes a lot of time to physically hand out the vouchers, and there’s a lot of tracking for fraud, and there’s a lot of follow up, so I also saw mobile money as an easier way to cut down a lot of time and expense,” Lucas said.

Under the pilot program, Mercy Corps “deposits” about $40 a month into each person’s cellphone savings account — and they can use their phones like debit cards at a few local stores. If all goes well, mobile money is expected to go commercial soon. Charles Duthard said it reminds him of when mobile phones came to Haiti.

“Back when I was younger I had family all over the little islands, and the only way to communicate with them was to record tapes and send them the tapes and that’s how they would hear from me,” said Charles Duthard. “Now I can pick up a phone and give them a call.”

That changed his life, and he thinks mobile money might too.
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• Rebuilding Haiti
• Michael Deibert’s Haiti Blog
• Haiti’s ‘restavek’ children

You’d never know it was a school, but tucked down an alley near a pier in the slum of Cite Soleil, is the Waf Jeremie School. It’s about the size of a garage, with Sheet metal walls, tarp for a roof. Inside are about a hundred children, dressed in pink and maroon uniforms. That is where we found Rosaline Durici. She’s fifteen and basically a slave.

15-year-old Rosaline Durici is basically a slave (Photo: Sabri Ben-Achour)

How did you get to live with this woman, I ask. Seven or eight years ago – it was a Friday, Durici remembers – this woman came to her home in the countryside. She told Durici’s parents that she didn’t have any children of her own, that she wanted to adopt Rosaline, and promised to send her to school.

Her mother wasn’t totally happy with the idea, she says, and Durici didn’t want to go but her father said she had to, because it would mean she would get a good education.

Where are they now, have you seen your parents since? She doesn’t even know exactly where they live.

Contrary to what Durici’ parents were led to believe, Durici didn’t go to school for 8 years. The woman who “bought” her has four children. Durici is responsible for bathing them, braiding their hair, dressing them, taking them to school. Then she has to do the washing, the cooking, the cleaning – everything there is to do around the house.

The children aren’t nice to her, she says, they don’t respect her. They call her names just like their mother does, insulting Rosaline about her body, telling her she stinks.

Sometimes the woman mistreats her, she says. Beats her, swears at her. Durici only started attending school this year – and only because neighbors started complaining. They told the woman she couldn’t just keep Durici shut up in the house all the time.

Does she ever hug you, I want to know. “Non” Does she do your hair? Yes, when I go to school, she’ll do my hair. But if I’m not going to school, I have to do it myself. I ask her wether she’s mad at your parents? No, she says. They only made me go so I could go to school. They didn’t know how this woman would treat me.

What makes you happy? Nothing, she says. Nothing makes her happy. Because she’s far from her mom and dad. No matter how hard things might be out in the countryside, she believes she would be happy there, because they would be together.

Rosaline Durici’ story is starting to look up a little bit. She’s in school now, she can write her name, her parent’s names. That’s the only unusual part of her story though – that she made it to school at all. Jurvelle Luckner is a pastor who runs the school that Rosaline Durici attends. He says life for some of Haiti’s restaveks has only gotten harder in the months after the earthquake. When some families’ homes collapsed, he says they turned their Restaveks out onto the street.

Rosaline Durici doesn’t know what she’ll end up doing in life. Most restaveks – skillless and illiterate – end up on the street or as domestic servants. Some even stay with their host family through their adult lives. Rosaline just holds out hope that maybe, one day, she’ll see her family again.
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• BBC story about Haiti’s child slaves
• Haiti cholera death toll rises
• Haiti coverage on The World

Bon Samaritan Hospital is so crowded that overflow patients were lying in hallways (Photo: Beth Macy/ Roanoke Times)

Family members wait in line to purchase medication at Bon Samaritan Hospital (Photo: Beth Macy/ The Roanoke Times)

Prativa Basnet, a third-year-resident of the Maine Dartmouth Family Medicine program, helps Haitian nurse Sonia Pierre start an IV on an 8-year-old girl (Photo: Beth Macy/ The Roanoke Times)

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• Bon Samaritain Hospital
• Angle Mission Haiti
• Angle Mission Haiti blog

In Cite Soleil, Haiti’s largest and most notorious slum, Alcide Gesmain’s daughter lies on a cot. Gesmain says the girl has cholera. “Today about 5 in the morning she got a bellyache.”

The belly ache turned to diarrhea, and then vomiting. When they were walking toward the hospital, she fainted and they had to carry her in. Nine hours later, she’s still vomiting. “Only God knows what’s gonna happen,” says Gesmain.

Sister Marcella Catozza (Photo: Sabri Ben-Achour)

“I had two dead people in front of the clinic – not died but just about to die. They died here ten minutes later.”

The clinic smells like chlorine. Anyone who goes in or out has to walk through a tray of bleach and water. The floors are constantly being mopped. Sister Marcella says about sixty people a day are showing up with symptoms of cholera. Most are so sick they’re sent off to larger hospitals.

“Sunday morning the boss of my team called me to tell me we had four dead people here, two young children and one adult , one person on monday, and two during the night between monday and thursday, one baby yesterday.” She adds that she doesn’t even know if the people she sent to the hospital are still alive.

Outside the clinic, ramshackle sheet metal structures sprawl for miles, with just the tiniest of alleyways between them. The ground is bare dirt packed with trash. Pigs root around in fetid streams. Sister Marcella says they don’t have clean drinking water, and they didn’t before the earthquake.

“We don’t have latrines. I built eight latrines, but they’re not enough. One hundred and fifty thousand people are living here, and eight latrines are nothing.”

Trash and putrid streams flow through the slum (Photo Sabri Ben-Achour)

She says she’s heard that people pigs have been digging up the bodies of people who died of cholera and were buried nearby. “They say if you smell the air you can get cholera, too, so we use the toothpaste to block the air.”

Sister Marcella says that education campaigns have been slow to take hold. She says people don’t understand why they’re being asked to boil water.

Public Health officials say slums like Cite Soleil are actually more at risk than the displaced person camps, because the camps are getting a lot of attention from non-governmental organizations or NGOs — at least when it comes to water. Sister Marcella says Cite Soleil, on the other hand, has become a victim of its reputation.

“This is a very dangerous area,” she says, and a lot of NGOs can’t go in.”

She says that means people in the slum are largely left on their own.

Kate Alberti, an epidemiologist with Medecins Sans Frontiers, one of the NGOs addressing the outbreak, says they’re very concerned about Port au Prince.

“We’re seeing an increase every day in the number of cases. unfortunately this is a trend that will continue for the next few days if not next few weeks. And we’re very concerned about the capacity between the ministry of health and major actors to be able to effectively care for these patients.”

More partners, she says, would be helpful.

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• A charity worker’s diary
• Lisa Mullins speaks with David Darg of Operation Blessing about the outbreak
• Haiti cholera death toll rises sharply
• Tracking the source of cholera in Haiti

• Refugees International
• On The World: Haiti rubble art
• Neighbors improve relations over quake

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is the World. It’s been almost ten months since a powerful earthquake struck Haiti. And yet 1.3 million people remain stuck in tented camps. Conditions for many are still desperate. There’s violence, especially against women, and it’s on the rise. These are the findings of a report by the non-profit group called Refugees International. This report was co-authored by Melanie Teff, who’s now in Washington, D.C. You say that Haiti is still trapped in emergency phase. It’s been months, ten months as we said, since the earthquake. So why is this the case?

MELANIE TEFF:  As you say, there are over a million people stuck in these overcrowded, squalid camps. And there’s no plans for transitioning them out of the camps and to get them back into their homes, get rebuilding happening again, get people outside of Port-au-Prince to the provinces where there would be more chance of a dignified life. Those plans are not happening. The money’s held up, the Haitian government has not resolved land disputes and the humanitarian operation just seems stuck.

MULLINS:  Who’s in charge of the humanitarian operation?

TEFF: The United Nations is responsible for the humanitarian operation and we have different agencies responsible for different parts of it. So, for the camps the International Organization for Migration is responsible.

MULLINS: Is that a UN organization?

TEFF: It’s not. It’s an inter-governmental organization. And it has a mammoth task. I mean nine months on, the materials that people were given for their tents are rotting because of the sun, because of the rains. And so they don’t have proper shelter from the heat and the rains now. And there aren’t enough latrines. When you go to the camps there was often an overwhelming smell coming from the latrines. And perhaps the worst things that I heard were from the women’s groups who told us how scared they are living in the camps. I hear so many stories of gang rapes, of increased domestic violence, of women who have no alternatives but prostitution in order to support their families. And now, despite how miserable the camps are, people are also scared that they’re going to be evicted from them because landowners are starting to say that they want their land back. And that’s leading to threats and intimidation against camp residents.

MULLINS: Okay. We should say that were going to hear a wider story about the prostitution problem in Haiti in just a few minutes. By the way, we’re in touch through the BBC, in touch with the United Nations, and a spokeswoman there, Imogen Wall, says, for one thing she agrees with some of the findings by Refugees International that security is a problem, policing is underfunded at the refugee camps. She also talked about the sexual violence and here’s what she had to say.

IMOGEN WALL: Sexual violence was a serious problem in Haiti before the quake. It continues to be a serious problem outside the camps, as well as in the camps. In many ways this isn’t a situation created by the quake.

MULLINS: Do you agree with that Melanie Teff?

TEFF: I certainly agree that sexual violence was a problem before the quake. I do think though that the conditions in the camps have exacerbated the level of sexual violence. We spoke with local women’s groups who told us they were now receiving three times the number of reports of sexual violence that they were receiving before the quake. Now maybe more people are coming forward because there’s more attention to these issues and they were aware that there were places to go. But, I agree it was a pre-quake problem, but we need to deal with it now. Those women’s groups need to get support. We need to get better policing in the camps. Now we have, the UN police are doing some patrols in the camps, which is a good step forward, but they don’t have enough staff. In particular, they don’t have translators so they can’t communicate with the camp residents which is a huge problem. They don’t have enough transports so they can’t get out to the camps. And the Haitian national police are very rarely turning up.

MULLINS:  Well, the police, according to Imogen Wall of the United Nations, the policing is, she says, a problem because there’s not enough money to support more police there. But here’s what she had to say about security in general at the camps.

WALL: The camps are actually largely relatively peaceful. We’ve had very, very few security incidents in the camps. I think that’s really worth stressing. I think it’s very unfair to accuse the Haitian people of creating large scale security problems in camps because those aren’t there.

MULLINS: She says those aren’t there. The large scale security problems. Melanie, when you were at the camps did you witness anything for yourself? How did you get the information that you have about security problems?

TEFF: They came from the camp residents. And it depends what you mean by large scale security problems. I disagree that people feel secure in the camps. People told us that they are frightened when they have to go out to the latrine in the dark at night. And most of the camps do not have lighting still. They told us that they’re scared because they have no locks on the doors of many of the latrines as so people can push the doors in. They’re living in flimsy material that can be cut through with a knife. And a lot of the violence that’s happening is robbery related. Petty thefts. But also violence against women is happening.

MULLINS: Alright, Melanie Teff, thank you very much.

TEFF: Thank you.

MULLINS: Melanie Teff of Refugees International co-authored a report on the harrowing conditions in parts of Haiti nearly nine months after the earthquake. You can find a link to the report at TheWorld.org.

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• Photogallery of Musharraf event in London

Musharraf talked with The World’s Marco Werman in October 2009. (Photo: Catherine Murphy)

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Web extra: Marco also asked Musharraf about his stay in the US:
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Pakistan’s role as a US ally goes through ups and downs. But today is a down day. Pakistani officials moved to block a key US and NATO military supply route into Afghanistan. We’re going to hear why in just a few minutes. First we turn to the man who for years was Washington’s key ally in the region. Pervez Musharraf was president of Pakistan between 1999 and 2008. He’s been living in exile since he stepped down. Now, though, Musharraf wants to re-enter Pakistan’s rough and tumble politics. The World’s Laura Lynch reports from London, where Musharraf is set to launch a new political party tomorrow.

LAURA LYNCH:  It’s the kind of sound Pervez Musharraf has grown accustomed to as he tours the international lecture circuit. Last night, the Intelligence Squared debating forum attracted a sold out crowd to an upscale London neighborhood to hear from the former president.

CHRISTOPHER MEYER:  General Musharraf needs very little introduction from me as you know he was leader in Pakistan, president of Pakistan from 1999 onwards. A job which Time magazine billed as the most dangerous job in the world.

LYNCH: But apparently, Musharraf wants back into power, dangers and all. It’s not official just yet. But Musharraf’s interrogator last night, former diplomat Sir Christopher Meyer, tried to tease it out of his guest.

MEYER: On Friday you’re going to make a big political announcement in your capacity as leader of the All Pakistan Muslim League. Now will you give us a sneak preview, please, of what you’re going to say on Friday?

LYNCH: Musharraf couldn’t resist. He is styling himself as the savior of Pakistan, ready to rescue it from the evils of corrupt and inefficient politicians. And Musharraf, the leader who seized and held power in a military dictatorship for almost a decade, is championing the cause of democracy and elections.

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: I want to introduce a new political culture, democratic culture. And one of the elements is that I cannot put myself as the president. So I would much prefer that I’m going to join the APML as a member.

LYNCH: Make no mistake about it though, Musharraf is still a fan of Pakistan’s powerful military. He says the military should be given a greater say in the nation’s affairs. And he’s warning that with so much trouble in the country, there could be another coup, referring to a meeting just this week involving Pakistan’s army chief.

MUSHARRAF: Well, you’ve seen his photograph sitting with the president and prime minister. I can assure you they weren’t discussing weather. There certainly was, there was a serious discussion. Certainly at this moment all kinds of pressures must be on this army chief.

LYNCH: The fact that Musharraf is launching his party and his comeback in London suggests it’s risky for him to return. He still faces a number of criminal charges in Pakistan. On the streets of Karachi today, reaction to a Musharraf comeback is mixed.

MALE SPEAKER:  We love Musharraf. I think he’s the best choice and is the best person because all these politicians, I’m sorry to say, these all are evils and they ruined the country.

FEMALE SPEAKER: I don’t think that it’ll be a good idea for him to come back. And I don’t think anyone wants him back quite honestly. I don’t. He thinks he’s a politician. Politicians very often say things they don’t really mean.

SPEAKING URDU

MALE SPEAKER: Look at the exchange rate now with the dollar, the price of gas, the inflation rate, and the law and order situation. There may have been some mistakes made during his rule. Everyone makes mistakes. But if we compare the situation with today, his era was much better.

LYNCH: For now, Musharraf will campaign from the outside, trying to persuade Pakistanis that he’s the best man to run the country. And he knows he has to shake the label that he’s America’s puppet, doing the White House’s bidding. So last night he made a point of decrying a NATO helicopter attack on a Pakistani security post earlier this week. He said the US and other countries have no need nor justification to take their battles inside Pakistan.

MUSHARRAF: If our forces are lacking in any potential, then the West or United States or the coalition forces should realize that and equip Pakistan army or air force to suitably deal with targets. So I would be the last person to recommend any crossing across the border to hit targets in Pakistan by any other force than Pakistan forces.

LYNCH: Still sounding every bit the military strongman, Musharraf says America and its allies are showing weakness every time they speak of ending the mission in Afghanistan. He speaks as a man without power or political office. Given Pakistan’s fractious and fragile state and his strong ties to the military, Musharraf has reason to hope his comeback will be a success. But this time, he has to depend on winning over voters, instead of winning power at gunpoint. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

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• Read Aleem Maqbool’s diary and watch a video
• BBC coverage of the Pakistan floods

Pakistan Floods (graphic: BBC/OCHA/media reports)

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Today, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke visited areas of Pakistan affected by floods. Holbrooke highlighted US aid to the country, in the form of money and helicopters, since the flooding began six weeks ago. The human toll for Pakistan has been huge. More than 1,700 people have been killed. At least 10 million people have been forced from their homes. The floods destroyed entire villages and damaged millions of acres of cropland. The floodwaters have receded from some parts of the country but many areas are still under water. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool is journeying down Pakistan’s Indus River. Today he’s in the province of Punjab, in a village called Mari, which is right on the banks of the Indus River.

ALEEM MAQBOOL:  I’m looking out over the river right now and there are children swimming out some distance. And it is very peaceful, it’s that tranquil. And quite frankly, it’s a beautiful sight, but this was the body of water, of course, which caused so much misery and destruction over recent weeks when those monsoon rains came. It swelled to many times its normal size and destroyed communities on either side of it. The village itself, and I’m standing right in the midst of it, is just rubble now frankly.

MULLINS:  Is there much relief aid there? Is there much in the way of reparations to the infrastructure yet?

MAQBOOL: There are accusations here where I am in Punjab that all of the government aid is going to supporters of local politicians and not necessarily those who are most in need. But there have been accusation like that all the way along the Indus so far. We’re on day three of this journey. We started in the Swat Valley and then travelled through the northwest of the country before we got to Punjab.

MULLINS: Take us back to the beginning of the journey, as you say, about three days ago you were in Swat Valley. Remind us where that is and tell us what you saw there.

MAQBOOL: The Swat Valley is in northwest Pakistan is where a lot of the most dramatic damage was done. It is a beautiful, beautiful valley with sort of green slopes and snow-capped mountains and, of course, the beautiful Swat River that runs through it and leads to the Indus. But when those initial rains came at the very beginning and remember this destruction has been going on. New areas were inundated today in the south of the country, but the damage that was done in Swat was done very early on. I mean infrastructure damage and it wasn’t until I saw it with my own eyes, I could believe that huge concrete structures, bridges, had been totally lifted off the pillars that supported them and dumped into the river. But there is where a lot of American troops are working. They’re using Chinook helicopters to ferry people backwards and forwards. And actually it was very interesting, this is somewhere which of course has had problems with militancy in the past, the Swat Valley, and a lot of people have freely admitted that they had been anti-American until recently. They said they had had their minds changed by the way the Americans had been operating over the last few weeks in helping them in this disaster period.

MULLINS: We know that al-Qaeda’s number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, lashed out against Pakistan’s government today in a video in what he called the failure of authorities in Pakistan to provide relief from the floods. Are you seeing any kind of resonance with that kind of claim by al-Qaeda? Are people paying attention? Are people listening? Are people adhering to that kind of thought?

MAQBOOL: Quite openly, groups that have been considered banned Islamist groups are, as some people see it, taking advantage of the situation. And I actually had access to a camp run by one of these groups. They say it is doing God’s work. They were a group that’s actually associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba and I don’t know if you know that name, but that’s the group that many people suspect of being behind the Mumbai attacks in India in which over a 160 people died. So, that’s the kind of group we’re talking about and they are operating quite freely across the northwest of the county. But there are others who are playing the hearts and mind game as well. I mean some people consider the Americans doing a similar thing in the Swat Valley. And there are opposition politicians right across places we’ve been who are handing out food or they’re handing out cash as well. They say they’re doing their duty. Others see it as taking advantage of a disaster.

MULLINS: Aleem, do you have any idea as you’ve following the Indus River through Pakistan, how many miles you’ve covered so far?

MAQBOOL: So far over three days, we’ve covered about 400 miles. And all the way along there are very different problems. They say in Swat it was about access with so many bridges taken out. We were in an area called [SOUNDS LIKE] Charsadda and that was an area I visited quite a lot when the floods first struck. I revisited a family there, the [PH] Gul family, where I had to have described to me six weeks ago by the father of the family, how he’d watched helplessly as his two teenage daughters had been swept away by a wave, he described it as 12 feet high, and now we revisited that family and we spoke to the mother of the family who said, look, we are trying to get things back together, we’re trying to rebuild walls, and exactly what she said to me was, she may be breathing, she may be speaking, but frankly her life came to an end six weeks ago when her daughters were swept away.

MULLINS:  Alright, we’re going to catch up with you along the way. Thank you very much. Aleem Maqbool from the BBC, travelling down Pakistan’s Indus River, speaking to us from the province of Punjab today. Thanks a lot, Aleem.

MAQBOOL: My pleasure.

MULLINS: And you can follow Aleem Maqbool’s journey through his blog. Find a link at TheWorld.org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• BBC coverage
• Revisiting a family in Pakistan
• Natural disasters push up food prices

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Pakistan faces two threats. Either one would be enough to threaten the stability of Pakistan’s fragile government. Combined, they are serious enough to cause anxiety, not only in Islamabad but in Washington. In a moment, we’ll hear about the latest suicide attack in Pakistan. The third in a week. But first, we return to the devastating floods that have left millions homeless. Aid has been slow to arrive to those in need. And even the camps that have been set up are not taking care of everyone. Madiha Tahir begins her report at a camp in Sukkur.

MADIHA TAHIR:  Abdul Razzaq has been at this refugee camp for ten days with his wife and children. He says he’s hungry and hot.

SPEAKING URDU

ABDUL RAZZAQ: They still haven’t arranged for any food. They told us last night they would send us ten dishes of food, but we still haven’t gotten them. And there are no arrangements for water. No water truck so people can have drinking water.

TAHIR: Razzaq’s camp is being run by a small local NGO, one of several that are administering camps in the southern province of Sindh. Hundreds of low-lying villages here effectively sank after flood waters smashed through embankment walls. Some of those who fled walked for days with their families to get to a campsite hoping for food, medication and a clean place to stay. But, with little government oversight, they haven’t always found it.

SPEAKING URDU

RAZZAQ: Every time a car comes, people follow it to see who’s coming. And these tents are so hot, you have no idea.

TAHIR: International and local NGOs as well as the government have been struggling to cope with the onslaught of refugees, but logistical problems are multiplying and camp space is running out leaving many of the displaced to fend for themselves. Gulzar, who goes by one name, has been living under a bridge by the side of a dusty intersection with his wife and seven kids for the last ten days. Cars, trucks and rickshaws roll past blaring their horns and spitting smoke in the air. Gulzar says basic hygiene has become a problem.

SPEAKING URDU

GULZAR: My kids sleep on the ground. They sleep in the dust. Young kids are sick and cholera is spreading.

TAHIR:  The family’s belongings, a pedestal fan, a bundle of clothes, and pots and pans, are piled by the railing on the side of the road, exposed to the weather and thieves. But for Gulzar going to a camp-located right across the street isn’t an option. That’s because he doesn’t have his national ID card that he would need to register as a refugee.

SPEAKING URDU

GULZAR: It fell in the water, so what am I supposed to do about that. It wasn’t like I could go along with the water and figure out where it was.

TAHIR: Rejected from camps, these refugees have been resourceful jerry-rigging makeshift tents and even straw shacks along the side of the road. This group has its ID cards, but they say they’ve been denied entry for other reasons.

SPEAKING URDU

SHANTI BIBI: We’re Hindu and so they say we have no religion. But God can see we’re all in trouble. But, no one listens to us here. We get pushed around no matter where we go.

TAHIR: Shanti’s makeshift shack, like others who live next to her, overlooks a private campsite organized by wealthy individuals. Shanti and others follow me down to the camp when I speak with an aid worker there. He’s clear about why those on the hilltop haven’t received help.

SPEAKING URDU

MALE SPEAKER:  These people are Hindus.

TAHIR: An argument quickly breaks out between aid workers and the refugees who’ve been denied service.

SPEAKING URDU

BIBI: So what if we’re Hindu? So the poor can die and that’s ok?

SPEAKING URDU

MALE SPEAKER: The non-Muslims will get tents. They will get tents. They’re coming.

SPEAKING URDU

BIBI: No, no don’t lie!

TAHIR:  When I speak with one of the camp organizers, Afzaal Ahmad Shaikh, he says, the problem is that there is simply no space. But he also blames the refugees for their religious and ethnic divisions.

AFZAAL AHMAD SHAIKH: These people have problems with each other, like these Baloch tribes don’t want to stay with the Hindus. The Hindus don’t want to stay with Baloch. 25% of my camps are for non-Muslims.

TAHIR: Why have a quota system even? Why can’t you help first come first served?

SHAIKH: Because we don’t have an issue. These people have an issue with other Baloch tribes and other tribes. We don’t have any problem if it’s 75%, 80%. We don’t have any problems. For we are working for humanity, not for any religion.

TAHIR: Whether it’s the fault of those fleeing the floods or those organizing camps for them, the lack of government oversight as campsites proliferate means that religious and ethnic divisions are reflected in the relief efforts. That’s likely to compound the incredible logistical problems. And for these refugees, it may mean the difference between shelter and the open sky. For The World, I’m Madiha Tahir, Sukkur, Pakistan.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• See a picture of baby Samina
• Jill’s interview with Marco on Aug 24

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: The BBC’s Jill McGivering has been covering the floods in Pakistan.  Last week we spoke to her after she’d visited the flood-ravaged region of Sukkur, to the north of Thul.  There, she encountered a woman by the side of the road.

JILL MCGIVERING: She has no shelter.  She was just sitting on a straw mat that someone had given her, under a tree.  And she gave birth five days before I met her, to a little girl.  That little girl, when I saw her on Day Five – well, she wasn’t taking breast milk, so basically she was getting no nourishment at all.

WERMAN: The prospects for the baby, Samina, seemed grim then.  But now she and her family have moved into a relief camp and are getting aid.  Jill McGivering has just been back to Sukkur to see how the family is faring, and sent us this report.

MCGIVERING: The last time I saw baby Samina and her mum, they were just living rough by the roadside, and I was quite dubious about Samina’s chances of survival.  I’ve come back now ten days later, and most of the people who had been there by the road have been moved into proper camps.  I understand that Samina and her family have also got a tent now inside one of these camps, and I’m walking through it trying to find them.  Tent #59.  I’ve found them.  Samina’s mother looks much more happy than she was before.  There was a big smile when she saw us coming.  And there’s Samina.  She’s still tiny.  She’s in the shade now, though, inside the tent.  Her head is dressed in some cotton wool, still in the same saucer they were using before.  But instead of lying on the hard ground, she is lying on some beautifully embroidered cushions.  And she’s wriggling, stretching and yawning and wriggling, as though she has got some life in her.

‘Ah, hello.’

Ah.  This is Samina’s father.  He wasn’t here before; he was having some medical treatment.

SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: Samina’s father, [PH] Grocan, is saying that he’s been in the hospital for the last few days.  He says he’s had a very bad fever, and he puts it down to all the shock and trauma they’ve gone through – losing the house; losing their land.  And he says that their father-in-law and brother-in-law are still unaccounted for.  They don’t know where they are.

‘And how is Samina?’

SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU

YOUNG BOY: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: They say Samina is getting some breast milk but she’s not feeding properly.  And they’re also quite concerned – she has quite a nasty skin infection.  In order to get treatment for that, they have to pay when they go to the doctor, they say, and they just don’t have the money to do that.

‘What is the situation here in the camp?  Are things better now than they were before, on the roadside?’

SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: They say they are getting basic food and water here, although nothing that’s suitable for the baby.  But they’re also saying, ‘We’re not happy here.  We want to go home.’

‘I understand you’ve tried to go home.’

SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: He says that he tried to go home a few days ago to try and see what was left, but he couldn’t reach it.  He got part of the way and then the roads were waterlogged; there’s still a lot of water there.  Vehicles couldn’t get through and he had to give up and come back to the camp.

‘What do you think will be the biggest problems for you now, in the future?’

SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: He’s saying that they’ll stay here for another ten days, and then they really want to move back to the area where their house was.  Their own house has been destroyed, but some of their relatives’ houses they think are still standing, so perhaps they can stay there while they start to rebuild the house.

Then I asked Samina’s mother, ‘What are your concerns about Samina, her health and her future?’

SAMINA’S MOTHER: SPEAKING URDU

MCGIVERING: She’s saying that she’s very worried about Samina.  She still has this skin rash and she’s been having a fever recently because it’s so hot here.  There’s no electricity, so there’s no electric fan.  And Samina’s mom also isn’t feeling very well.  She says the food in the camp that they’re given is very spicy and she can’t tolerate it.  She still doesn’t feel properly better after giving birth by the roadside only a couple of weeks ago.

For Samina and her family, the immediate crisis is now over.  They have shelter and food and water.  But like millions of others in this country, they only rent their land.  And the crops on which their income depends have been washed away.  Their future is still very uncertain.

WERMAN: The BBC’s Jill McGivering in Sukkur, Southern Pakistan.  You can read Jill’s online story and see a picture of baby Samina at theworld.org.

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• Pictures sent in by BBC users
• BBC coverage
• Jeb Sharp’s How We Got Here podcast
• Altered rivers contributed to Pakistani floods

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MARCO WERMAN: It’s hard to take in the magnitude of Pakistan’s flood, but it may help if you imagine the vast scale of the Indus River. It flows some 2,000 miles. All the way from Tibet down to the Arabian Sea. As The World’s Jeb Sharp reports, the river has shaped the region’s economy and politics for thousands of years.

JEB SHARP:  If you look at a map of Pakistan you can’t miss the thick swirl of blue that denotes the mighty Indus flowing right through the country north to south. Geographer Daanish Mustafa of Kings College London likes to point out that it was Alexander the Great who apparently gave the river its name.

DAANISH MUSTAFA:  It meant the sea in Greek. The name India is a derivative of the term Indus. India is named after the Indus. And the local name for the river is Sindu. And Sindu is the name that gave the name Hindu which is what the inhabitants of the land of Sindu are called, Hindu. Which came to be identified with a specific religion.

SHARP: It’s not every river that gives its name to a country and a religion. Mustafa says it also spawned one of the great civilizations of the ancient world.

MUSTAFA: Everybody’s heard about the Egyptian civilization, the Nile civilization, and the Tigris and Euphrates, and it had a contemporary civilization in the Indus which according to many archaeologists was just as advanced and sophisticated and as prosperous as the others. And had extensive trading and exchanges with these other civilizations.

SHARP: The river is the lifeblood of the region’s agricultural economy but it is also a source of tension, both inside Pakistan and between Pakistan and India. It’s ironic because without the river, Pakistan would be a much more arid, less populated place says Adil Najam a professor of geography and environment at Boston University.

ADIL NAJAM: So it shouldn’t be an agricultural country. The land in Pakistan is kind of like the land in Arizona. The only reason why it prides itself to being a breadbasket is because the waters of the Indus has given it the ability to irrigate this land. Pakistan has the world’s longest contiguous network of irrigation canals. All based on the river Indus.

SHARP: And while that irrigation system supports hundreds of millions of livelihoods it’s also blamed for exacerbating the floods. The volume of diverted water leads to a build up of silt and that impedes the river’s ability to absorb the heavy monsoon rains Pakistan experienced this year. Daanish Mustafa says human beings are arrogant when it comes to river management.

MUSTAFA: We think that we can tame rivers. We think that we can control rivers. We think that our science is strong enough to subdue the rhythms of great rivers like the Indus and this flood is a reminder that we really cannot.

SHARP: Mustafa and others want to see a major rethinking of how the Indus is managed. Adil Najam would agree management needs to be better but he worries that some critics want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

NAJAM:  The irrigation system is in fact one of the great marvels of modern civilization in that region both in India and in Pakistan. The intensity of the flood has largely been, has been not simply because the water was so much, but also because up north we have done so much deforestation that a lot of the natural systems that would have managed this have been denuded and therefore the floodwater collected so much more in the north that by the time it came gushing to the south there was very little that good management could have possibly done.

SHARP: However the river shed is managed, experts say climate change means there will likely to be more of these extreme weather events and therefore more catastrophic floods in the future. For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.