Nicole Duce, 43, holds her 5-month-old daughter, Fridzadora Loga, in the badly hit town of Port-Salut, Haiti. Eight people live in the shack, which was constructed after the hurricane destroyed their original home. Two children in the family were killed in the storm. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Marc Arthur Saint Fleur, 41, lies on a mattress that is drying in the sun on his roof in Port-Salut. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
One early morning in late October, Bellande Lubin washed her shoes in a river near her home town of Les Cayes, Haiti. She was wearing her favorite pastel pink dress, given to her by her mother. The river, used by the community for bathing, washing clothes and as a latrine, was flooded a month earlier by Hurricane Matthew. Lubin’s in fifth grade but can’t return to school because it’s being used as a shelter by some of the tens of thousands who lost their homes to the storm.
Matthew has left 800,000 Haitians in desperate need of food. Along the roads, starving children beg for something to eat. Homeless families sleep under trees. Emergency help is arriving, but there is not enough of it. The United Nations has raised just a third of the $120 million needed to cope with the emergency. Storm-hit areas have reported around 3,500 suspected cholera cases. The death toll stands at 546, but local officials have reported twice that many killed.
Washington Post photographer Sarah Voisin visited the county in late October. Here’s a look at what life is like a month after the devastation of Matthew.
At a hurricane-damaged dock in Les Cayes, Haiti, workers leave to unload cargo ships as the sun rises. On the right is a ship containing food and other donated aid supplies waiting to be unloaded. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Bellande Lubin, 10, washes her shoes in a river in Les Cayes that flooded during the hurricane. She’s in fifth grade but can’t return to school because the building is being used as a shelter for people who lost their homes. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
As the sun rises on the badly hit town of Jeremie, young men stand amid rubble that was once seaside homes. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Merline Charles, 21, center, sits on a concrete slab that once was her home. She is with her son, Sander Dore, 1, and her daughter, Widlove Adonia, 4. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A police escort follows a convoy through the town of Carrefour Charles, where the day before, a truck carrying beans was attacked. Small towns on the way to Jeremie are starving and resentful to see many aid convoys pass by. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
As the sun set in the town of Fondtoutanu, which translates to “Left with Nothing,” residents of Dumoi ran down the mountainside to pick up sacks of rice, beans and dried herring. There were 412 bags, almost enough for everyone. They were desperate to get some supplies as many had not eaten in days. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Ellio Moise, 46, lives with his wife and 10 children in the badly hit fishing village of Carpentier in Port-Salut. He lost his cars, boat and half of his pigs. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
People in Port-Salut catch fish in a river as the sun sets. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
At the Lycee Nord Alexis, a school in Jeremie, the capital city of the Grand’Anse department, several hundred people sleep on concrete floors of a building with no running water and no bathroom and where food comes infrequently. As active children run around, a family lies on the floor of one of the classrooms and shares a plate of food. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Violene Cupidon, 17, bottom right, has her hair braided by Rodeleine Laguerre, 18, in the hallway of a school. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A wheelbarrow full of items for sale is pushed past a hurricane damaged home in Jeremie, the capital city of the Grand’Anse department. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling of what used to be a night club in Jeremie, the capital city of the Grand’Anse department . (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A woman leads a pig down a flooded and damaged street in downtown Jeremie. A month after the category 4 Hurricane Matthew blasted through southwestern Haiti, people are starving and in many cases have no shelter, especially in the worst-hit departments of Grand’Anse and Sud. The death toll stands at 546, according to the government, but local officials have reported more than twice that many dead. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
A family congregates on a concrete platform that was once a seaside home. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
In the neighborhood of Caracoli, Odna Exilien, 11, holds her friend’s dolls in a shack that lost its roof. She said she didn’t have any dolls of her own to play with. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Nadiene Saint Jules, 22, lies down with her daughter, Briana Germain, 1, and son, Loveson Germain, 3, at the Lycee Nord Alexis, a school in Jeremie. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
People walk past destroyed buildings in the town of Beaumont in the department of Sud. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Jean Robert Smith, 47, left, and his mother, Solita Saintil, 78, peek from their home in a makeshift community where 230 families have settled in crude lean-tos made of sticks, plastic and tattered bedsheets. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)