Henry
"Tulile" Claude Jean was a 35-year-old Haitian
shoe-shine and cobbler
found lynched in a
park in Santiago, Dominican Republic on Feb. 11. His
widow is
sick, destitute, and living in fear in a Santo Domingo
shanty town. She also longs to see her children, from
whom she’s been separated for over five months.
Last
week, photo journalist Tony Savino, a
Haïti Liberté
collaborator, visited Erzulia Selima, 32, at the home of
her parents in the Dominican capital’s suburban barrio
of Rosa Carito.
“The apartment is in a basement with no windows,
and at the time, there was no electricity,” Savino
reports. “The heat and humidity were unbearable.”
Erzulia moved to the Dominican Republic with her
parents from Plaisance when she was 11 years old, so she
has spent half her life in the country. But she fears
the repression and deportation campaign which Dominican
authorities are currently waging against Haitians and
Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.
After her husband was killed, Erzulia contracted
first malaria and then typhoid fever. Now she has kidney
stones, which make it difficult for her to bend over or
do any strenuous lifting. Furthermore, she recently
broke a tooth and now has a serious mouth infection.
With Tulile, she had two girls: Yulisa Jean, 10,
and Juliana Jean, 8. After the lynching, both daughters
were sent to Haiti for their safety and have not been
told that their father is dead. Juliana has been asking
for him, Erzulia says. The sick mother doesn’t even want
to tell Yulisa, who may be old enough to understand, for
fear that she may tell her younger sister, traumatizing
her.
In her dire state, Erzulia says she has only
received some help from Edwin Paraison, a former Haitian
consul and long-time Haitian activist in the DR.
Erzulia is appealing to the world for financial help so
that she can visit her daughters. People can contribute
to her by going to the Go Fund Me appeal at
http://www.gofundme.com/ztp7t8r
or can send money directly to her via Tony Savino’s
PayPal account at
tonyfoto1@yahoo.com.
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