Millennium Ark: Hot News

January 15, 2010
AFP

PORT-AU-PRINCE: The international relief effort, already struggling to reach Haiti's desperate residents, suffered a body blow last night with the looting of the World Food Program's warehouses in the capital.

The UN agency, planning to feed two million people over the next month, said it would have to restock to feed the survivors of the earthquake.

Aid workers hoping to distribute food, water and other supplies to a shattered Port-au-Prince warned that they might need more security as Haitians grow increasingly desperate for help.

UN peacekeepers patrolling the capital said people's anger is rising that aid has not been distributed quickly, and the Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping mission warned aid convoys to add security to guard against looting.

"Unfortunately they're slowly getting more angry and impatient," said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the UN mission.

"I fear we're all aware the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed."

But in a boost for the international aid effort, Cuba granted the US rare permission for American aircraft to use its airspace for the aid and evacuation flights to Haiti, cutting 90 minutes off the flight time.

Tens of thousands of survivors huddled in Port-au-Prince's squares and streets, hoping for food, water and medical supplies.

Haitian President Rene Preval said 7000 people had been buried in a mass grave as hundreds of corpses piled up outside the city's morgue and next to a hospital.

The Red Cross estimated that 45,000 to 50,000 people have been killed. Haitian officials have said the death toll from the disaster could top 100,000.

"Nobody, nobody has come," said Serge Jean, who spent the hours after Wednesday's quake digging out a demolished school with his hands as dying pupils wailed beneath them. No officials came to help.

"We see a lot of people dying," Mr Jean said. "A lot of kids dying."

The damaged seaport, the congested one-runway airport, the shattered communications system, and difficulty co-ordinating the aid, all delayed relief efforts.

The first navy ship, the USS Higgins, arrived in Haiti yesterday, joining a small number of Coast Guard cutters. It was followed last night by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

"You will not be forsaken," US President Barack Obama promised Haiti as he ordered a $US100 million ($107m) aid effort spearheaded by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

With reports the US was preparing to commit 5000 troops, Lieutenant General Ken Keen, head of the US military relief effort, said more than 300 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived at the airport and others on the USS Carl Vinson.

"We have much more support on the way. Our priority is getting relief out to the needy people, to mitigate the suffering that the Haitian people are experiencing right now," General Keen said.

Yet signs of the global rescue effort proved elusive to many. As helicopters flew overhead, residents wondered whom the aircraft were helping. "There's been nothing, nothing, nothing at all since Tuesday," said Janel Pierre-Jacques, 33, a plumber. "I had heard that aid was coming in but so far we haven't seen any."

Thousands of survivors, including Mr Jean, are now in camps across the city. "We are starving," said Mr Jean, 39. "It's three days since I had food."

On a main street through the Nazon neighbourhood in the central part of town, bodies lay kerbside every 3m, some alone and some piled up, with stiff and swollen limbs protruding from the rags that wrapped them. Garbage trucks were collecting the bodies that lined the streets and were stacked on corners.

Many Haitians complained that their government seemed to have vanished following a disaster in which at least one cabinet member was killed, the presidential palace was destroyed, and many police lost their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/un-food-warehouses-in-haiti-looted/story-e6frg6n6-1225820277694