No escape from Haiti

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie introduces stories from Haiti, Chad, the Netherlands, Palau and Mexico.

Haiti remains mired in crisis, with the capital in the grip of gang violence - more than 350,000 people have been displaced. Will Grant reports from Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic, where he has witnessed the growing desperation among people flocking to find food and supplies and escape the violence.

It’s nearly a year since civil war erupted in Sudan between rival military forces - more than a million have fled to neighbouring countries, including Chad. Mercy Jumar covered the refugee crisis there last year and now returns to the border town of Adre.

Despite his dramatic win in the 2023 elections, Dutch far-right populist Geert Wilders has abandoned his bid to become the next prime minister. After weeks of negotiations to try to form a coalition, he realised he couldn’t convince other parties to serve under him. Anna Holligan explains what happened.

Western Pacific watchers have continued to warn that China is trying to gain more of a footing with the ocean's island nations that control large swathes of it. Frey Lindsay reports from Palau in the Western Pacific, which has long-standing ties to the US, but is increasingly being courted by China.

From Parma ham to Cheddar cheese, Darjeeling tea to Islay whiskey, there are many fabulous foods and delicious drinks from around the world that help put towns, cities and regions on the map. But, often these places have a reputation for more than just one thing. As Proinsias O’Coinn discovered when he travelled to a world-famous town in Mexico.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Today we meet those who fled Sudan's brutal civil war and find out how they're helping
0:11.8	each other to overcome trauma.
0:14.0	In the Netherlands we hear how the half-hearted rebranding
0:18.0	of the anti-Islam populist leader,
0:21.0	Heatt Wilders, wasn't enough to give him the keys to the Prime Minister's office.
0:26.5	We travelled to a tiny Pacific island that's eagerly quartered by two of the richest and
0:31.8	most powerful nations on earth, and why there's far more to
0:36.4	tequila than a salt-rimmed glass, a slice of lime and a down-in-one. First to Haiti, where widespread gang violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks.
0:50.0	An already precarious situation has quickly deteriorated as criminals launched
0:56.6	coordinated attacks on key facilities, forcing the country's Prime Minister
1:01.5	Arielle An Henri to resign.
1:04.4	Gangs that were once concentrated in particular neighborhoods have grown in size and
1:09.2	power in recent years.
1:11.2	They now control much of the capital, Porto Prince, as well as many of the country's
1:16.2	main roads blocking access to food, medical supplies and fuel.
1:22.0	On Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic, Will Grant reports on how
1:26.6	desperation is growing. On market days, the land border crossing at Dajabond is an assault on the senses.
1:35.4	The air is filled with the noise and dust from a steady stream of motorbikes, flatbed trucks,
1:40.5	and pedestrians crossing in both directions at once.
1:44.1	Haitians with the right paperwork can come and go for the day without too much difficulty
1:48.8	to the chaotic Dominican border towns commerce zone, but can't, it seems, enter the country properly to seek work or better living conditions.
	...

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