Mirebalais
Coordinates: 18 ° 50 ′ 0 ″ N , 72 ° 6 ′ 19 ″ W.
Mirebalais ( Creole : Mibalè ) is a city in eastern Haiti , in the Center department . Mirebalais is the capital of an arrondissement (district) of the same name .
The Commune de Mirebalais has about 98,000 inhabitants (as of 2015), the actual city about 20,000 inhabitants. Since 2009, with around 10,000 inhabitants, the population has grown significantly, as many Haitians who were made homeless by the earthquake on January 12, 2010 found refuge in Mirebalais, which was not affected by the disaster.
Location
Mirebalais is located 42 km northeast of the state capital Port-au-Prince and 39 km west of the border with the Dominican Republic on the left bank of the Artibonite , the largest river in Haiti. Located at the intersection of paved national roads 3 (from Port-au-Prince to Hinche ) and 11 (through the Artibonite Valley to the coast), Mirebalais is easy to reach - by Haitian standards.
15 km upstream is the Péligre dam with the most important power station in the country.
history
In 1706, nine years after Spain had recognized the French claim to the west of the island of Hispaniola in the Peace of Rijswijk, the French had their slaves build a cart path that led from Dondon to the Cul-de-Sac plain where we are today Port-au-Prince is located. Mirebalais was created at the ford of this route through the Artibonite. Thanks to this favorable location, the place developed into a market town . On the plantations near Mirebalais, cotton was mainly grown, along with coffee. Mirebalais' importance as a local center was recognized and at the same time strengthened when, following the Concordat of 1860, one of the first twelve parishes in Haiti was established in Mirebalais in 1864.
At the end of 2010, Mirebalais hit the headlines when Nepalese blue helmet soldiers from the Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilization en Haïti (MINUSTAH) stationed in an army camp not far from Mirebalais introduced cholera and triggered a devastating epidemic .
After the university hospital in Port-au-Prince was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, a teaching hospital was built in 2011/2012 to replace it in Mirebalais, one of the largest hospitals in Haiti outside the capital.
Sons and daughters of the place
- Benoît Batraville , born in Mirebalais in 1877, teacher and resistance fighter against the occupation of Haiti by the USA , was executed by the Marines in 1920 .
- Léon Cantave (1910–1967), Haitian general, politician and President of Haiti in April / May 1957
literature
- Melville J. Herskovits : Life in a Haitian valley . Knopf, New York 1937 (on everyday life, folk culture and family relationships in Mirebalais and the surrounding area).
Footnotes
- ↑ [1] IHSI: Population totale ... 2015, p. 109
- ^ Robert Debs Heinl, Nancy Gordon Heinl, Michael Heinl: Written in blood. The story of the Haitian people, 1492-1995 . University Press of America, Lanham 1996. ISBN 0-7618-0229-0 . P. 29.
- ↑ Conversations Lexicon of the Present in four volumes. Volume 2: F to J . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1839, p. 652.
- ↑ Micial M. Nérestant: L'Eglise d'Haïti à l'aube du troisième millénaire. Essai de théologie pratique et de sociologie religieuse . Editions Karthala, Paris 1999. ISBN 2-86537-960-4 . P. 216.
- ↑ Final Report of the Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti , May 2011, especially pp. 18–23, reproduced in abbreviated form in: Sven Stockrahm: UN camp was the origin of the cholera epidemic in Haiti . In: The time of May 6, 2011.
- ↑ Walter Edward Kretchik, Robert F. Baumann, John T. Fishel: invasion, intervention, "intervasion". A Concise History of the US Army in Operation Uphold Democracy . US Army Command and General Staff College Press, Fort Leavenworth 1998. p. 208.
