Earlier this week, the terms of Haiti’s last 10 remaining senators officially expired, leaving the Caribbean country without a single elected government official as it faces a set of intersecting catastrophes: famine, cholera, devastating gang violence, fuel shortages and economic collapse.
“The situation is unprecedented in Haiti’s history,” Prof Matthew Smith, a historian of Haiti who joined UCL in London as director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery after many years at the University of West Indies. “You could see the country’s history as a series of crises with brief periods of hope and peace – but there hasn’t been anything like this.”
