For the past few nights, at dusk, a film, a haze of fog fills the air stifling the lungs and irritating the eyes. From our vantage point at the Fox Haiti bureau, you can see the skyline is covered in a layer of gray, obscuring the view of the majestic coastline. The choking smoke has become a necessity to prevent disease.
Garbage and debris has piled up in the streets and in the number of tent cities across the city. And with Haiti’s government completely crippled there is no one to organize clean up, so people across the city have taken to burning their trash and fecal matter in hopes of maintaining sanitation.
Another grim cause for the smoke in the air is the burning of bodies in the foothills surrounding the city where mass graves have been dug and tens of thousands of bodies have been thrown in and burned to cut down on the chance of disease spreading. While people try to get back to some sense of their daily lives, the smoke is a harsh reminder of their reality.