genocide on america's footstep

Unending Floods, Cholera on the Island of Hispaniola


In recent days, torrential rains, flash floods, and mudslides have displaced thousands of people in different parts of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

The National Meterological Service put 19 provinces on alert status for more of the same on Friday, May 4.

Not surprisingly, along with the rains comes a cholera upsurge, seen in an outbreak that occurred in the last week of April in the northern part of the country, where one person died and another 200 sought medical treatment. This coheres with an upsurge in Haiti as well.

So far this year, according to the National Epidemiological Service, there have been 1,724 "suspected" cholera cases in the Dominican Republic, including figures for the last week of April. Since November of 2010, one month after cholera broke out in Haiti, 23,347 Dominicans became ill with cholera, of whom 347 died.


In Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, constant rains flood many of the squalid camps still housing half-a-million people, destroying their "homes" made of tarps, plastic, etc., and displacing thousands. As the Haiti Chief for the International Organization for Migration put it, "this could only be the beginning of what we fear will be a long and difficult rainy season."