BACKGROUND
Since the Haitian revolution (1791 to 1803), the country has been in an almost permanent state of insurgency, with successive military coups and civil wars leaving thousands of victims in their wake. In addition, Haiti has a very weak economy and is the poorest country in the Americas.
On 12 January 2010, a devastating earthquake measuring 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale took the lives of 200,000 people, injuring 300,000 others and leaving more than a million homeless, mainly in the capital Port-au-Prince.