By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE LINGERING stench of charred earth has intensified the anxiety of residents in the nation’s largest shanty town, The Mud, Abaco.

As families picked through the remains of their homes yesterday some thanked God that once again lives were spared in the blaze that tore through the area over the weekend.

Without the loss of life, though some asked whether officials were perhaps waiting for fatalities before they were forced to deal with The Mud and all its problems.

More than 30 homes were razed on Sunday in the second major blaze to rip through the settlement. Local officials and residents told The Tribune the community is under constant threat from fires and environmental hazards borne by the illegality of building practices.

“As a resident it makes me want to get out more,” said 37-year-old Bahamian carpenter Claude Daniel, who said he was not awarded citizenship until his early 30s despite having applied at 18.

“It just ain’t safe to be around no more,” he continued, “some people want to get out but people in their 30s and 40s still don’t have documents to go buy land. You can’t open a bank account, you can’t do nothing. It’s definitely a rock and a hard place, that’s what it is.”

“I’m gonna be all right but you have some young kids, they still out of school. I know young kids born in the country, seven or eight years old just walking around in the yard all day because they can’t go to school, but there’s laws. I’m not saying it’s right.

Mr Daniel added: “I’m saying God don’t sleep. They (Government) probably wait until they lose couple lives before they make any real change.”

With the devastation running parallel to the government’s renewed pledge to dismantle shanty towns across the country, speculation over possible linkages was rife among onlookers yesterday.

Of the residents canvassed, an overriding sentiment was the belief the characterization of the shanty town as a haven for illegal migrants has allowed successive governments to scapegoat their neglect of a community some residents claim is significantly occupied by Bahamians - whether naturalized or not.

“You can’t just bring a bulldozer and knock over everything, it would be a riot, but the last fire just happen two or three weeks ago,” said 27-year-old Bahamian Julia Forbes, who underscored the scarcity of affordable living accommodations on the island.

Ms Forbes, an expectant mother-of-five who travelled to the island for employment, told The Tribune she settled in the Mud after she was unable to afford available options which exceeded $2,000 per month. Her children live in Freeport with their father.

“I’m a Bahamian,” she continued, “I don’t have no Haitian descent. It was just no (affordable) apartments over here and I didn’t want to quit my job to move back to Nassau.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said the young mother who is six months pregnant.

“At least I had my passport and my wallet but everything I owned was right in there because I was supposed to come right back.

“The rent was $200 a month, can’t beat that.”

The issue of electricity and its source in the Mud is unclear, with some residents claiming they get their power from the few electricity poles which border the many entrances to the settlement. The poles represent a long foregone era when the settlement enjoyed utilities like electricity and running water; the alleged disruption of those services in the early 90s was suggested to be politically motivated.

However, others underscored power is siphoned from a network of rented drop cords that run overhead and along the ground between generators.

Ms Forbes said there were different levels of residents, some of whom were living off-grid in complete disregard of laws, and others who subscribed to the comforts and norms of modern society.

Up to yesterday, the total number of residents displaced by the early morning blaze was 60 adults and 35 children. However, the official shelter designated by the government in partnership with the Red Cross was empty on Sunday night. Red Cross shelter manager Sarone Kennedy Sr said the total number of people registered was nine.

The Tribune was told displaced families were likely staying with relatives and friends, or at trusted churches, as they were especially vulnerable with all or most of their belongings, specifically their legal documents lost in the fire.

On Monday, DEHS Island Manager Kimberley Wells led a team of workers to survey the area and immediately treat any open bodies of standing water to prevent potential outbreaks and identify the removal of metals to prevent environmental contamination.

Ms Wells said: “The practices what goes on inside here it’s very disturbing because the septic system is not properly constructed and then you have the water. You could have any kind of outbreak at any time, it’s concerning. We come in here all the time we can’t just come in here when there’s fire.

“We can’t ignore what happens inside here that’s why my officers are always inside here treating and what not. They (residents) work with us, they sleep with some of us, so you have to be very concerned as to what’s going on around here. This is an accident waiting to happen, a deadly accident. Thank God no one lost their lives or anything like that but if you just look you still have all these houses connected basically to each other and it’s really concerning.”

In the January fire approximately 55 homes were destroyed, affecting 170 people. A 42-year-old man was subsequently arraigned in Abaco’s Magistrate’s Court on ten counts of arson.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has since pledged that the area affected by the fire will be cordoned off and no structures allowed to be rebuilt there.

During his tour of the settlement following the January fire, Dr Minnis was embraced by an elderly permanent resident, 72-year-old Fillette François.

Yesterday, she told The Tribune she was still waiting on the assurances made during that visit. Her house was severely damaged by that fire and she now lives in a smaller structure on the compound she has lived on since 1992. She said she has put in an application for land papers but has not received a response in two years, and admitted she has no idea which agency to follow up with.

Ms François, who also cares for her 10-year-old grandson as his Bahamian father is incarcerated, said she will not leave her residence unless she is given some form of permanent accommodation.

“They don’t want me to stay there,” she said, “but if you don’t want me to stay there you have to give me somewhere to go. if you move out, you can’t get it, you don’t have no paper, that’s why I’m still here. If you want me to go you have to give me somewhere to go. People don’t know the law. I can’t live here (in rubble) but I been living here so long, I do my best to live by myself. I don’t like live for free, that’s why I apply for this property three years ago. I don’t like living free, I want the right things, that’s the Bahamas way, and they need the money, you can’t come in the Bahamas living free if you love this place.”

Ms François added: “I have permanent residency, so long I wait for that, but you know how your people go, sometimes they want give it to you, sometimes they don’t want to give it to you, sometimes they make you walk, walk, walk, but I wait, I know God is good.”

Yesterday, The Tribune witnessed Ministry of Works officials take measurements for the area and were told residents had been advised there would be no opportunity to rebuild regardless of adherence to regulations.

“I’m 33, squatters rights don’t apply for the Mud,” said Jackson Lamy, a naturalized Bahamian mechanic.

“Any place else, or for anyone else, but for Haitians or descendents of Haitians squatters rights don’t apply to you. When they say yuck out the book (passport), all of the books look the same. but it just don’t apply to us.”

Continued Mr Lamy: “Every time it burn, they tell you you can’t build, so what that telling you. They know that if it burn eventually all of us will go. But I don’t know where they want us to go.

“It wasn’t us, our parents came here and grow us up here, our mentality is here. (Parents) they ain’t teach us no other mentality all we know is here, you can’t blame us if all we know is this. If the government did want to help us they could have helped us from long time, they knew we were here, they ain help us. When we was growing up and others growing up behind us they ain’t helping them.”

Embittered by what he feels is the persistent injustice doled out to naturalized Bahamians of Haitian descent and their children, Mr Lamy yesterday suggested if the shanty town problem is not resolved the community will be filled with only Bahamian residents in less than 20 years.

He expressed disgust over what he felt was political exploitation of Bahamian voters in the Mud and Pigeon Peas, and subsequent neglect by successive administrations.

“We know what it is,” Mr Lamy continued, “but when it’s time for you to vote they know where to come. The road was so smooth and clean but everytime election come and go it’s hell with the road, hell with the Haitians until time to vote again. They don’t worry about us, no running water, no light, what you think they trying to tell us?

“It don’t make no sense (voting),” Mr Lamy said, “They tell you we gonna put running water and light right now, you see the FNM in power, where the light? Where the running water? But you hear they trying to evict us. (Dr Minnis) he didn’t tell us that, it was just everything gonna be straight, power get restored, water, good road.

“So now places burning, 100 persons going to look for apartment, another two weeks now another hundred, where we going to find it? Abaco ain’t that big, and they telling you don’t build, how you could tell me don’t build my mommy and aunty them out on the road? Where I gonna put them?”