Port-au-Prince overlook © Shayhaas
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Haiti has begun touting itself as among the safest destinations in the Americas. The country’s tourism officials are making this claim based on statistics from a study of violent crime that calculated Haiti’s rate of violent deaths — 6.9 per 100,000 inhabitants — to be among the lowest in the Americas.
Supposedly the odds of dying violently in Haiti are currently about the same as in Long Beach, California, with the Prime Minister of Haiti quoted as saying, “The kidnap and murder of US citizens is very rare in our country.” How, um, reassuring.