9090: This Week in Haiti 19:27 9/19/2001 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "[iso-8859-1] Haiti Progrès" <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <editor@haitiprogres.com>.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       September 19 - 25, 2001
                          Vol. 19, No. 27

WORLD TRADE CENTER:
THE HAITIAN TOLL

There may be dozens of Haitians among the estimated 5,600 killed
as a result of the Sep. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center (WTC) (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 26, 9/12/2001).

As we go to press, the official count of people "missing"
according to New York City authorities rests at 5,422. Hope is
dwindling that any of this number will turn up living as no
survivors have been pulled from the rubble since last Wednesday.
In addition to the missing, "we can classify 218 people as having
died, 152 identified, 66 bodies still to be identified," New York
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced Sep. 18. "Of that overall
number, 37 are uniformed officers, 32 fire, two E.M.T., two Port
Authority Police officers and one New Jersey Fire Department."

Many families still hope to find their "missing" among the
hundreds of injured in New York City hospitals. In Lower
Manhattan, every bus stop, telephone booth, and light pole is
covered with dozens of flyers posted by families looking for
their disappeared loved ones. Occasionally, a missing person has
turned up. But the confusion which reigned in the days
immediately following the attacks is ebbing, centralized lists
have been drawn up, and most families are beginning to lose hope.

Hundreds of Haitians worked at the World Trade Center as, among
other things, financial analysts, engineers, salespeople, clerks,
secretaries, janitors, receptionists, restaurant workers, and
security guards. On radio programs, street corners, internet chat
rooms, and living room sofas, many of them have told of their
escape from the disaster.

But several Haitians are among the missing, and their families
have begun to prepare for the worst. This week Haïti Progrès has
investigated the names of some of the Haitian missing. Until
their fates are confirmed, we continue to use the present tense.

FARAH JEUDY, 31, lives in Spring Valley, a suburban town in
Rockland County, about 20 miles north of Manhattan. She took a
one week vacation cruise with her little brother during the first
week of September. She returned to work at Aon Corporation, a
Fortune 500 insurance company, on Sep. 10. Aon had about 1,350
employees on Floors 92 and 98-105 of Two World Trade Center.
Farah was manager of the 99th floor as well as Fire Coordinator
for the floor. After the second airliner slammed into Tower Two,
Farah, along with her boss, evacuated all the Aon employees on
that floor. Apparently, Farah and her boss also started down the
stairs to safety. Around the 84th floor, Farah's boss called his
wife on his cell phone. Unfortunately, the communication was cut
in mid-conversation. Both Farah and her boss are now among the
missing.

Farah was born in Port-au-Prince and grew up in the U.S. since
the age of four. "I have four sons but she is my only daugher,"
said Farah's mother, Anneida Jeudy, who lives with Farah in
Spring Valley. Like her mother, Farah is a Jehovah's Witness. "It
has been very hard for me these past days. So much anxiety. It is
only my faith in Jehovah that keeps me going," Anneida said.

Aon Corporation reports that about 200 of its employees remain on
the list of the missing.

ANDRÉ BONHEUR, 40, is a financial analyst at Citibank. His office
was on the 2nd floor of Tower One. He was about to be transferred
to Citibank's office at 34th Street and Broadway, his family
said.

At 8:15 a.m. on the fateful day, André went to the 105th floor of
Tower One for a meeting at the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald,
according to his family. He did not make any calls after the jet
struck the building.

André lives in Brooklyn. He has a wife, Roxanne, and two kids,
ages13 and 5. He also has three brothers -- Fritz, Monode, and
Moïse -- and a sister, Carole. His father, André, 68, also lives
in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. The family moved to New York
from Port-au-Prince 29 years ago.

André's brother, Monode "Mo" Bonheur, 37, was also at the WTC
just before its collapse. He is a New York police officer who was
stationed at the corner of Church Street and Vesey Street. "I was
one of those people who had to run as fast as they could up
Church when the building fell," Monode told Haïti Progrès. "I
didn't know at that time that my own brother was probably in
there."

Despite working 36 hours straight on the day of the disaster,
Monode and his family have tirelessly sought out information
about André. "We haven't turned up anything," Monode said.

FRANÇOIS JEAN-PIERRE, 58, is a restaurant worker at the world-
famous "Windows on the World," on the 107th floor of Tower One.
He was at the WTC when a terrorist bomb went off in a basement
garage in 1993, but nothing happened to him then.

This September, François had been out on sick leave. September 11
was his first day back at work.

He was born in Cap Haïtien on Feb. 6, 1943 and emigrated to New
York in the early 1980s. He has one daughter, Sherly, age 26, and
two sons, Roody and Jean Herold, aged 22 and 23.

"I have spent all my days looking everywhere for him," said
Christine Jean-Pierre, his wife, who lives with François in the
Flatbush section of Brooklyn. "I have checked all the hospitals."

Christine's son has even made a color computer poster with
François' photo, which they have posted around with the hundreds
of family flyers now seen around New York.

GÉRARD JEAN-BAPTISTE is a New York City  fire figher, who is also
confirmed to be missing. At press time, we had no further
information about him.

There are also two Haitians who are reported missing, but Haïti
Progrès was unable to contact their families for confirmation.
Jacqueline Mompoint is an engineer who worked for the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey on the 73rd Floor of Tower
One. She is married and lives in New Jersey. Nolbert Salomon has
also been reported missing. He is believed to have worked at the
WTC for the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Finally, the Sep. 18 Daily News published the photos of 133
missing people. Among them was Charles Laurencin, 61, of
Brooklyn, whom the News says was in security. Haïti Progrès
contacted André Laurencin in Jamaica, NY. André's family is from
St. Lucia, where one also finds many French names. André did not
know Charles, but intends to contact family members to see if
they can determine if he is from Haiti.

Many Haitians are also asking if Jean Roger was Haitian. Jean was
a flight attendant from Longmeadow, Massachusetts who was on
American Flt. 11, the first Boeing 767 to crash into the WTC.

If any readers know of other Haitians who were killed or who are
missing, please contact Haïti Progrès at 718-434-8100 or email us
at: editor@haitiprogres.com.