Sanson-Rejouis family remember birthday

Sanson-Rejouis family photo

Sanson-Rejouis family photo

Sanson-Rejouis family photo

Sanson-Rejouis family photo

New Zealander Emily Sanson-Rejouis, pictured with her husband Emmanuel Rejouis and her children Kofie-Jade (5), Zenzie (3) and Alyahna (2).

Sanson-Rejouis family photo

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As Sanson-Rejouis family members wait in the United States until efforts to find missing five-year-old Kofie-Jade are exhausted in quake-devastated Haiti, others at home in Nelson have commemorated what would have been her younger sister's fourth birthday.

Nelson woman Emily Sanson-Rejouis lost her husband, French-Haitian UN worker Emmanuel Rejouis, and their three-year-old daughter Zenzie in the quake, and the body of a second daughter, Kofie-Jade, is missing and presumed dead in the collapsed building where the father and daughters were staying.

Another daughter, two-year-old Alyahna, was pulled injured but alive from the rubble by her mother, who left her workplace when the quake struck and rushed home to find the building housing their apartment had collapsed.

The pair managed to get to the Dominican Republic before transferring to Florida to meet up with other family members who travelled from New Zealand.

Zenzie was due to celebrate her fourth birthday yesterday, the Nelson Mail reported.

Emily's sister Rachel Sanson said on her Facebook page that Zenzie was looking forward to being four and had wanted a purple birthday cake rather than presents.

Family members in Nelson held a commemoration yesterday with a cake and candles.

Meanwhile, those in Florida to support Mrs Sanson-Rejouis' were making sure the search for Kofie-Jade's body would resume as soon as the focus shifted from the hunt for survivors.

Ms Sanson said she expected it would get harder for her sister in the following weeks as she prepared to return to New Zealand with Alyahna.

Mr Rejouis had moved his job from Burundi in East Africa to his homeland of Haiti so he could provide his family with a safer life, according to Jules Hobbs, a friend of the family.

She said Mrs Sanson-Rejouis was bringing their three children up alone in Nelson last year before her husband found them a "safer" way to be together.

"Burundi is not a place to bring up children and his desire was always to find a position which would allow him to keep the family together. (Haiti was also an opportunity for) the children to experience the country he was brought up in and speak French as well," she said.

Mrs Hobbs has set up a Facebook page to support the family.

- NZPA