Food distribution difficult without security in Haiti - Feature

Port-au-Prince -Aid started slowly arriving in quake- ravaged Haiti over the weekend, but tens of thousands are still waiting for urgently-needed aid: water, food and other essentials. Amid the catastrophe scenario in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, some aid officials say distributing aid poses serious problems and risks of unrest.

The structures of the Haitian state are hardly functioning, and a major portion of the leadership of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) apparently died in the quake. There are few authorities in a position to preserve law and order.

"It's unthinkable what would happen if people found out that food was being handed out in a certain neighborhood," says Birgit Zeitler, a member of the team of the German non-governmental organization Welthungerhilfe in Haiti.

The organization plans to distribute water to people Monday, for the first time since the quake.

So far, the UN World Food Program (WFP) has set up five places where food can be handed out: two football pitches and three open spaces. There, cereal bars and empty buckets were distributed as a first start.

According to WFP officials, the organization has enough food stored in Haiti to distribute to 200,000 people over two weeks, without need to await supplies from abroad.

"Aid organizations know what the situation in Haiti is like in normal times," Zeitler noted. "Everyone is insecure, because they do not want to spark an explosion."

An uncoordinated distribution of aid could lead to fighting, riots, and at worst even to an outbreak of generalized violence. Initial, somewhat spontaneous, actions to hand out aid have already led to scuffles.

"I would not yet be confident to hand out food on a large scale," said Ruediger Ehrler, also of Welthungerhilfe.

In parks and other outdoor areas, where thousands of people have been living since Tuesday's quake, there are no structures to distribute aid.

Even the idea of using a local church for the task of handing out food is problematic, because only a fraction of the homeless who are staying nearby actually belong to the congregation, aid officials said. And the number of people there doubles during the night from people seeking shelter.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304281,food-distribution-difficult-without-security-in-haiti--feature.html.