Haiti, Government, Port-au-Prince, Cité Soleil
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Cité Soleil (Kreyol: Site Soley, English: Sun City) is a very densely populated commune located in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in Haiti. It has development as a shanty town. Most of its estimated 200,000 to 300,000 residents live in extreme poverty.[1] The area is generally regarded as one of the poorest, roughest, and most dangerous areas of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country; it is one of the biggest slums in the Northern Hemisphere. There is little police presence, no sewers, no stores, and little to no electricity.[2]
The neighborhood, originally designed to house manual laborers for a local Export Processing Zone (EPZ), quickly became home to squatters from around the countryside looking for work in the newly constructed factories. After a 1991 coup d'état deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a boycott of Haitian products closed the EPZ. Cité Soleil was soon thrust into extreme poverty and persistent unemployment, with high rates of illiteracy.[2]
Armed gangs roam the streets. Murder, rape, kidnapping, looting, and shootings are common as every few blocks is controlled by one of more than 30 armed factions.[3]
On January 12, 2010, at 21:53 UTC, (4:53 pm local time) Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake, the country's most severe earthquake in over 200 years.[22] The epicenter of the quake was just outside the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.[23] As the biggest slum of Port-au-Prince, Cité Soleil fared relatively well, as most of its cinder block and corrugated steel shacks survived, and Médecins Sans Frontières reopened its Choscal Hospital located in the heart of the slum, operated between 2005 and 2007 during the gang war, within 24 hours.[24] However, the area remains in desperate need of help, according to World Emergency Relief.[25]
Gang members who escaped from Haiti's damaged prison are settling back into their criminal ways in Cité Soleil. Crime is rising, and police urged citizens to take matters into their own hands.[26]