©InfoNine-year-old Angeline was in her great-aunt’s home when the Haiti earthquake happened and the house collapsed.
Angeline made it out of the house, but fell down a hole, which is where her uncle, Wilson Loiseau, 32, found her. He said: “Her left leg was badly injured and she was coughing up blood. We tried to take her to the UN base here in Leogane to get medical help but there were already so many people there who had been injured it was impossible.
“So we took her to Port-au-Prince which is an hour and a half away and went to the Haitian Navy base where they gave her some first aid, but she needed to go to hospital. There were some foreigners there who said they could help and it was our only chance. So we exchanged phone numbers with them and they took Angeline from us.”
Separated from family
Angeline was taken to hospital in Cap-Haitian, a city on the north coast which is six hours drive away. Doctors operated on her leg and she had metal pins put in the bones in her thigh.
Orianne Aymard, 31, who works for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Haiti, said: “We regularly visit the hospital in Cap-Haitian where Angeline was treated, looking for people who have been separated from their family by the earthquake.
“There have been a lot of cases like Angeline’s where children have been rushed to any available hospital, often hundreds of kilometres away from their homes. Angeline was alone in hospital for three months which is a long time, especially for someone as young as she is.
Restoring family links
©Info“We registered Angeline with the restoring family links service and luckily, as her uncle’s number had been kept by the people who’d helped her, Angeline was soon in touch with her family. After the earthquake, we set up an online service which more than 29,000 people registered for, including more than 6,000 messages from people letting their families know they were safe.
“Since January, 18 children, including Angeline, have been identified by the ICRC and Haitian Red Cross and reunited with their families. We continue to search for the relatives of a further 94 unaccompanied children, and our teams are also working on the cases of more than 60 families who have submitted tracing requests for their missing children.
“It is so tough for everyone concerned – families not knowing where their children are, and children cut off from their relatives – and it’s heartbreaking that these stories don’t always have a happy ending, but seeing a positive result like Angeline’s is a great feeling.”
Challenges ahead
Wilson said: “When we found out where Angeline was it was a relief to know she was safe but we just didn’t know how we were going to get her back here to the family in Leogane – it’s so far away. But thankfully the Red Cross was able to help us.
“Angeline is a very funny, bubbly girl and the whole family really missed her while she was away. The last time we saw Angeline she was seriously hurt and in pain and we really didn’t know when, or if, we were going to see her again.
“The Red Cross said they would help bring Angeline back to us, but I couldn’t believe that it would actually happen. I didn’t believe it until I saw her, it’s like a dream. We are so happy to have Angeline back but life in Haiti is still hard and there are a lot of challenges, we hope the world will not forget about us.”
Read Ambroise's story about living alone after the quake
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