PERSONALITY | I am Evelyne Sincere…

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My name is Evelyne Sincère. I was born in the popular district of Grand Ravine in Port-au-Prince. I was only 22 years old when bandits kidnapped, beat, humiliated and killed me, then transported my naked body in a barrel and left it in a roadside dump. I have been a figure among the long list of victims of the insecurity that reigns in Haiti, and a hellish social situation for young women in this country who have to face daily extreme violence over popular districts.

My very confident kidnappers, carrying out their operations without worrying, demanded the fabulous sum of one hundred thousand dollars for my release, while I was held captive in a house in the heart of a popular district controlled by armed bandits who claim to be of the G9 group (coalition of gangs in control of the northeast of the Haitian capital).

I come from a very poor family with a mother head of household, but unfortunately swept away by the earthquake of January 12, 2010 which left more than 300 thousand dead in Haiti. My unemployed sister and my father, selling gallons of water through the streets of Port-au-Prince, could not afford to meet the demands of the kidnappers. After a few days of negotiations, three days after my kidnapping, my relatives ended up raising the equivalent of only $ 300, and my sister begged my captors to save my life. Dissatisfied with the deal, the bandits forced me to drink poison, strangled me, suffocated me and dumped my body on a pile of rubbish on November 1rst.

The economic situation in Haiti is extremely precarious. My relatives could barely afford my tuition in high school. It was a great pride for them that I could reach the final grade. The bandits on the other hand are used to large sums of money, and in the balance between their greed and their cupidity, my life was as insignificant as the 300 dollars offered by my family … they wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible, because they needed enough space for other victims.

It’s been a long time, Port-au-Prince has been considered an open-air cemetery. I learned about the double assassination of the young dancers Sébastien and Nancy, I also learned about the death of the president of the Bar of Port-au-Prince, Monferrier Dorval, and also for the assassination of the student Grégory Saint-Hilaire. I didn’t believe my turn would come so soon … I had so many dreams…

They didn’t just kill me. They also killed the hope that my efforts at school inspired my family one day to be able to lift them out of extreme poverty. They also silenced the dream that was boiling in me of one day being able to attend a journalism school and become journalist, they evaporated the privilege I had to have the results of my baccalaureate exam after so much effort and sacrifices. But a dream cannot be killed. There is so many other Evelyne Sincère who will succeed in getting out of this violence in popular districts. Many will slip through the cracks of insecurity and chaos that reign in the country and that make Haiti hell. And my dreams will come true through them…

Joseph LEANDRE