Where the sun never shines

Cite Soleil quickly descended into a violent and poverty-stricken Haitian slum. Photo / Reuters.

On the road that skirts the western edge of Cite Soleil an up-tempo drumbeat from a song by Haitian musical hero Wyclef Jean plays from a cheap transistor radio.

Nearby, nervous United Nations troops wait beside an armoured vehicle and a tank. Along the roadside, makeshift stalls sell "kenedi" - a Haitian Creole word for second-hand clothes first sent to the impoverished nation from the United States under a programme initiated by President John F. Kennedy.

Crumbling buildings scarred by heavy gunfire line the street beside ditches filled with rubbish.

Cite Soleil - or Sun City - is one of the largest slums in the northern hemisphere. There are no police, sewers or power for its 300,000 inhabitants. In 2004, the UN called Cite Soleil "the most dangerous place on earth".

Just 15 minutes downtown from the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, this Caribbean wasteland remains a fearful place.

Above the street, troops position themselves on rooftops, looking for early signs of trouble: the Chinese UN soldiers stationed in Port-au-Prince call the main road - National 1 - "the road of death" after the kidnappings and murders which plague the area.

Michel, my translator and guide, explains that the heavy UN presence is partly to deter gun-toting street gangs known as "chimeres" (a Creole term that roughly translates as "ghosts"). When trouble brews in this part of Rue Soleil, the main road that cuts through Cite Soleil shuts down. People retreat inside, the market disappears. The area becomes a ghost town.

From Rue Soleil, larger roads and narrow unpaved lanes lead off in all directions. Cite Carton, an area consisting entirely of cardboard "shacks", is perhaps the most impoverished of these inner neighbourhoods. Most of the houses consist of densely packed rooms made from basic recyclables: during the hottest months, tin roofs capture the relentless heat and transform the interiors into sweatboxes.

At the road's edge, a group of barely clothed children play soccer with a can, pushing each other as they skip around in the dirt. Beyond the road, black smoke rises from plastic waste burning in "ravines" or ditches.

Near Soleil 19, an area where a number of prominent chimeres once lived, a boy wearing a man's polo shirt and no pants asks, in French, to have his photo taken.

Standing in front of a wall with a graffiti tribute to Winson "2Pac" Jean, one of the most infamous chimere leaders, the boy poses and gives a wide smile. After a few moments, an older man who has been watching from nearby angrily calls the boy away.