20100116 Aid groups struggle to help Haiti

Aid groups struggle to help Haiti

AP , PORT-AU-PRINCE
Saturday, Jan 16, 2010, Page 1

Aid workers hoping to distribute food, water and other supplies to a shattered Port-au-Prince warned their efforts may need more security yesterday as Haitians grow increasingly desperate and impatient for help.

UN peacekeepers patrolling the capital said public anger is rising that aid hasn’t been distributed quickly, and the Brazilian military 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 Brazilian-commanded UN peacekeeping mission. “I fear, we’re all aware that the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed.”

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported yesterday that its warehouses in the Haitian capital had been looted since Tuesday’s cataclysmic earthquake. It didn’t know how much of its pre-quake stockpile of 15,000 tonnes of food aid remained.

A spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency, Emilia Casella, said that regular food stores in the city had also been emptied by looters.

The International Red Cross estimated 50,000 people were killed in the quake on Tuesday, based on information from the Haitian Red Cross and government officials.

Hundreds of bodies were stacked outside the city morgue, and limbs of the dead protruded from the rubble of crushed schools and homes. A few workers were able to free people who had been trapped under the rubble for days, but others attended to the grim task of using bulldozers to transport loads of bodies.

From Europe, Asia and the Americas, more than 20 governments, the UN and private aid groups were sending planeloads of high-energy biscuits and other food, tonnes of water, tents, blankets, water-purification gear, heavy equipment for removing debris, helicopters and other transport. Hundreds of search-and-rescue, medical and other specialists also headed to Haiti. Governments and government agencies have pledged about US$400 million in aid, including US$100 million from the US.

However, into the third day following the 7.0-magnitude quake, the global helping hand was slowed by a damaged seaport and an airport that turned away civilian aid planes for eight hours on Thursday because of a lack of space and fuel.

“I don’t think that a word has been invented for what is happening in Haiti,” aid worker Liony Batista said. “It is total disaster.”

Engineers from the UN mission have begun clearing some main roads, and law-and-order duties have fallen completely to the mission’s 3,000 international troops and police. About 5,500 US soldiers and Marines were expected to be in Haiti by Monday.