Haiti aid shifts to high gear; food violence persists - Summary

Fri, 22 Jan 2010

Port-au-Prince,Haiti - The Port-au-Prince airport was thrumming with a non-stop US Navy helicopter air lift ferrying food and other aid across earthquake-flattened Haiti as international officials started thinking about how best to rebuild this devastated city. More than 30 governments and hundreds of international aid organizations were pulling together to resuscitate the traumatized Caribbean country that may have lost up to 200,000 lives in the January 12 earthquake.

Ten days on, survivors struggled to balance still-tense nerves with attempts to make a quasi-return to normalcy amid the day-to-day struggle for life's essentials.

On Friday, Haitian police shot two men who were carrying five bags of rice, killing one, CNN reported from the scene. Police charged the two men had stolen the rice, but the surviving suspect said the rice had been a gift from the driver and other witnesses said the bags had simply fallen from the truck.

When the German aid group Welthungerhilfe (World Hunger Relief) tried to distribute rice and beans to designated recipients - mainly women, children and the elderly - wearing plastic bracelets on Thursday, 200 young men strong-armed their way to the front and spirited the goods away.

But out in places like Mirebalais, 25 miles northeast of the capital, and the Mara Valley, US helicopters and C17s were dropping supplies to sites secured by UN peacekeepers.

On the positive side, for the first time, several bars, cafes and a supermarket opened in Petionville, an affluent less-damaged neighborhood. Street markets seemed to be sprouting in every available space without rubble or burning garbage.

In Geneva, the United Nations special envoy for reducing disaster- related risk, Margareta Wahlstrom, said the world must "rebuild a safer Haiti."

The UN General Assembly and US Senate adopted resolutions in support of Haiti. The UN's flash appeal for 575 million dollars in emergency relief has received 334 million dollars in donations and pledges, the UN said.

"Seldom in the face of such a disaster has the international community acted in such solidarity, nor so quickly in the face of so many difficulties," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Hollywood celebrities were planning a televised fundraiser Friday evening to boost private contributions. The ex-wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, who wears an artificial leg, has appealed for thousands of artificial limbs for Haiti. Thousands of Haitians have had crushed arms and legs amputated.

Another aftershock of 4.4 magnitude shook Haiti on Friday, a frequent occurrence that is bringing down some of the few buildings that remained standing after the 7.0 temblor last week.

Haitian President Rene Preval, who has drawn the ire of traumatized Haitians for failing to appear in public and communicate with his people, told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that aid relief to his country suffered from a "general lack of coordination."

He dismissed criticism that he had cut an absent figure in the aftermath of the disaster, saying he went out to see the damage every day.

He also refuted worries that the massive US military role - there will be more than 10,000 troops in the country as part of the recovery effort - represented a kind of colonization. He help was coming from "many countries, not only from the United States."

Preval estimated that more than 70,000 bodies have been buried so far. Death toll estimates range up to 200,000.

In other developments:

- US Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, at a meeting in Toledo, Spain, made clear that the Haiti earthquake "is not an opportunity to immigrate into the United States." Refugees who try to enter the US illegally would be repatriated, she said.

- The United Nations announced the unsettling news that some 15 children have "disappeared" from hospitals in Haiti since the quake. According to Jean Luc Legrand, with UNICEF, the UN's Children Fund, approximately 15 children had been taken out of hospitals "and not with their families."

- Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, urged the 27-nation bloc to speed up adoptions of Haitian children that are already being processed. European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the EU would seek a common "framework" on adoptions, in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

- In the waters off Haiti, dozens of ships dot the water, including the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital that has treated at least 100 Haitians since arriving earlier this week. Navy helicopters hopped from ship to ship, delivering personnel, supplies and injured Haitians.

- The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson staged 15 medical evacuations within two hours on Thursday, the most on a single day since it arrived last week. At least one patient did not survive, a Navy spokeswoman said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305284,haiti-aid-shifts-to-high-gear-food-violence-persists--summary.html.