Haiti: Recovery and resilience after Hurricane Matthew

Les Anglais, Haiti – Hurricane Matthew made landfall on October 4, 2016, slamming into Haiti’s southern peninsula and killing an estimated 1,332 people.

Desperate Haitians sought shelter in everything from churches to caves and graves as 235km/hour winds pounded the country’s coast.

The storm levelled homes, killed livestock and destroyed agriculture in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

A United Nations report from February estimated that 175,000 people are still displaced as a result of it and 280,000 people remain “highly food insecure”.

Months after the storm, the progress of recovery is slow as residents lack the economic resources to rebuild their homes. Instead, families are packed into small structures erected from scavenged materials and covered by emergency tarps distributed by aid organisations.

Still, many Haitians express hope for their future as the country welcomes a newly inaugurated president and looks to avoid the mistakes that plagued the aid effort after the country’s devastating earthquake in 2010.