What started off as a tropical wave that pushed off the African coast in late September advanced into a raging storm that destroyed cities and left nothing but ruin and fatalities in its path. Experts say Hurricane Mathew’s fury was largely unexpected, and that when it started forecasters thought it didn’t have all the ingredients to become a strong hurricane. “All of our tools were suggesting a hurricane, but not a strong hurricane,” Chris Landsea, science, and operations officer for the National Hurricane Center told The Verge.
When Mathew hit Haiti on Tuesday, October 4, 2016, it was a full-blown Category 4 (some say Category 5) hurricane; it ripped off roofs, flooded thousands of homes, washed away bridges, destroyed farms, and killed people. The devastation is nearly akin to the catastrophic earthquake that happened in the country six years ago, one from which they are yet to fully recover. Immediate reports after the hit put the death toll at over a hundred in Haiti, but that number continues to climb, and is currently at 877, according to Reuters.
In January 2015, world leaders joined over a million people in a solidarity march against terrorism in Paris and in honour of the 12 victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Late last year, 70 million people in more than 200 countries shared prayers for the 129 victims of the Paris terror attacks on Instagram alone. Not to mention the flag filters offered by Facebook, and several trending hashtags on twitter. Months ago, “Je Suis Nice” trended as the world prayed for France after the Bastille Day terrorist attack, and people stood with Turkey after 41 lives were lost in a terrorist attack at Istanbul airport.
It’s been six days since Haiti was hit by a storm, that is almost a week since hundreds of families lost loved ones, and about 144 hours since hundreds of thousands of people are rendered homeless and hungry, I am yet to see a trending hashtag for Haiti. I anxiously await a Haitian flag filter on Facebook. No one gives a … when the skin is black I guess, and very few have a prayer to spare for the poor in distress. Haiti has no Eiffel tower and is no superpower. Although it is the first black republic, Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with an average per capita annual income of about $1,700, after over 200 years of independence.
Some media have also noted and pointed out the US media’s remarkable lack of interest in reporting the devastation in Haiti, a country just 800 miles to the south-east of Florida. As of Friday morning when the death toll in Haiti had reached 500, “CNN was broadcasting live footage of the storm as it passed north-west along the coast of Florida … The Haitian death toll barely made a mention in the network’s rolling coverage,” reports The Independent.
In the absence of, and a slow arrival of aids, Haitians are helping themselves amid a developing humanitarian crisis. Yesterday, the Carribean country began three days of national mourning as they lay the victims of Hurricane Matthew to rest. Judging from the global response to Haiti’s devastation, or the lack thereof, it is apparent that the world value some lives more than others.
