Figure 1.16: The displacement impacts of Hurricane Matthew People displaced 1,079,000 875,000 175,500 41,500 3,500 More than 100,000 10,000 - 100,000 3,500 288 200 Less than 10,000 130 90 50 Sources: Hurricane path and Storm area (NOAA, 2016), Human vulnerability (INFORM, 2017), Displacement data (Different sources compiled by IDMC), Outflows population (Estimates are based on movements of SIM cards which made or received at least one call pre-hurricane and in the week up to 8 November 2016 - Flowminder & Digicel Haiti). The boundaries, names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by IDMC. as half a million displaced people sought refuge with friends and family or set up makeshift shelters98, but the majority returned to their home areas within weeks of the hurricane.99 Many people moved out of the badly affected departments of Sud, Grand’Anse and Nippes toward urban areas including the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, Jeremie and Les Cayes100 and more than 175,500 displaced people took shelter in more than 220 evacuation sites.101 An estimated 90 per cent of homes were destroyed in the worst-affected areas, and the pace of reconstruction has been slow. Most of the destruction was in rural areas where traditionally built homes of timber, thatch and mud were unable to withstand the strong winds and flooding.102 In the coastal town of Les Cayes in Sud department between 70 and 80 per cent of houses were rendered uninhabitable.103 Six months after the hurricane, hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were damaged or destroyed were still living in makeshift shelters.104 Little assistance had reached the mountainous or island areas of Grand’Anse department, which were only accessible by motorcycle or boat or on foot, and whose populations were already extremely vulnerable before the hurricane hit.105 Matthew damaged or destroyed 98 per cent of homes in these areas, 85 per cent of which had yet to be repaired or rebuilt five months on. Few families had the means or materials to do so.106 This meant that most people displaced to shelter with friends or family or in evacuation sites elsewhere had returned to their former home areas to ongoing displacement near their original houses. Widespread vulnerability has been heightened by the devastation of food production, loss of livelihoods and capital and rising food prices following Hurricane Matthew, resulting in a food and nutritional crisis.107 The fate of around 47,000 people still displaced almost seven years after the 2010 earthquake shows the potential for recent displacement to become further prolonged and protracted.108 ON THE GRID: Global internal displacement in 2016 35