30,000 Haitian kids live in private orphanages. Officials want to shutter them and reunite families.
DÁNICA COTO
Associated Press
Updated
With gang violence plaguing the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, recent weeks have the rise of a group of vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands using machetes and other makeshift weapons. However, the UN warns that vigilantism will only fuel a rise in the spiral of violence in th…
SAINT-LOUIS-DU-SUD, Haiti — Mylouise Veillard was 10 when her mother dropped her off at an orphanage in southern Haiti and promised her a better life. For three years, Mylouise slept on a concrete floor. When she was thirsty, she walked to a community well and hauled heavy buckets of water herself. Meals were scarce, and she lost weight. She worried for her younger brother, who struggled even more than she did at the facility.
Siblings Mylouise Veillard, left, and Myson walk home with water they collected from a well, for cooking, cleaning and drinking, May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti.
Siblings Mylouise Veillard, center, and Myson look at pictures on a phone with Morgan Wienberg on May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti. Wienberg is executive director of Little Footprints, Big Steps, a nonprofit that helped reunite the siblings with their mother.
Mackenson Victor opens a coconut for his daughter Manouchi Victor, front center, and stepchildren Myson Veillard, top left, Routcheland Veillard, top, second from left, and Dabens Veillard, front right, as his partner Renese Esteve looks on at their home May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti.
Siblings Mylouise Veillard, left, and Myson walk home with water they collected from a well, for cooking, cleaning and drinking, May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti.
Siblings Mylouise Veillard, center, and Myson look at pictures on a phone with Morgan Wienberg on May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti. Wienberg is executive director of Little Footprints, Big Steps, a nonprofit that helped reunite the siblings with their mother.
Mackenson Victor opens a coconut for his daughter Manouchi Victor, front center, and stepchildren Myson Veillard, top left, Routcheland Veillard, top, second from left, and Dabens Veillard, front right, as his partner Renese Esteve looks on at their home May 25 in a rural area of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, Haiti.
