Thousands of Bahamians seek shelter in wake of Dorian

Roughly 70,000 people have been left homeless in the Bahamas after Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane, stalled over the island for days. Some are calling for the U.S. to take in people in desperate need of shelter, food, and water.

Among those is Jacqueline Bhabha, professor of the practice of health and human rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. In a September 8, 2019 CNN article, she said there are strong humanitarian reasons for temporarily admitting displaced Bahamians, as was done after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and 1998’s Hurricane Mitch in Central America.

“They aren’t really strictly speaking refugees but they are people who need protection and who may well need refuge outside their country,” said Bhabha.

Read the CNN article: ‘There is nothing here’: The future is uncertain for 70,000 in the Bahamas left homeless by Dorian