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After the passage of Dorian, the country faces a serious humanitarian crisis. Homeless people number in the tens of thousands and the topography of the archipelago makes it very difficult to intervene.
An estimated 70,000 people became homeless after the devastating passage of Dorian. This is a lot for an archipelago like the Bahamas, where housing capacity is reduced. By air or by sea, the victims are transported to Nassau, the capital and big city of the country, usually suggestive of paradise tourism.
When landing, families receive a mobile phone. Often, this phone offers them a first opportunity to give news to distant relatives, the communications infrastructure has been severely damaged in Grand Abaco.
But already the Prime Minister, Hubert Minnis, warned that Nassau could continue to receive " the evening in the morning " the population of Grand Abaco. The authorities therefore intend to build emergency shelters on the devastated island.
The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands
The topography of the archipelago, however, makes the rescue intervention particularly complicated. " The Bahamas archipelago is an archipelago of more than 700 islands with many small islands that are inhabited by only a few families. These few families had been ordered to evacuate these places before the hurricane. Unfortunately some have decided to stay and it is likely today that some of these families are in very difficult conditions, without communication skills and out of reach of the current aid that is being redeployed on the Bahamas, "explains Raphaël Hamois, coordinator at the International Federation of the Red Cross at RFI.
According to a latest report, the hurricane killed at least 45 people in the Bahamas, but many people remain missing and the authorities predict that it will increase.
(With AFP)