Haiti : Saved but Still Adrift

Stuck in a Caribbean limbo, the 5,000 Haitians camped out at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are worried. Their future is filled with uncertainty--but they prefer that to what they see as certain death in their homeland. A president’s ouster, new military rulers and a crippling trade embargo have sent thousands fleeing aboard rickety boats bound for the United States. Thousands have drowned, U.S. officials estimate. The lucky ones are plucked to safety by Coast Guard cutters, and many are relocated to a tent city at the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo. There, they pin their hopes on the slim chance of asylum in America. But many of them could hardly be in worse shape to face a new life. Most have no money, no documents and no clothes other than the rags they are wearing. Poor and uneducated, most speak only Creole. And hundreds may be affected by the killer human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, U.S. military doctors say, basing their estimate on tests performed on a few hundred of the refugees.