Desperation as rains pound Haiti
Thousands of Haitians sought shelter in schools as the death toll from Tropical Storm Noel rose to 143 across the Caribbean.
Heavy rains continued to pound Haiti, leaving United Nations and Haitian officials temporarily stranded as they toured Haiti’s flooded southern peninsula.
Noel, which lashed the north-eastern US with high winds and rough surf yesterday, is the deadliest storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, with the greatest devastation on the waterlogged island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Desperation set in at shelters in the volatile Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil, with people at one schoolhouse complaining on Saturday that UN guards abandoned the site overnight, allowing for a group of machete-wielding men to enter and threaten to rape young women.
Roseline Pierre, a 46-year-old mother with four children, said they had not received any food since Friday afternoon, and that shelter officials locked them out of classrooms on Friday night, forcing everyone to sleep in the playground.
“What they’re doing to them is terrible,” said Laine Pierre Raymond, an official with the Ministry of Interior who toured the shelter yesterday and criticised authorities for their inaction.
Maj Gen Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, Brazilian commander of the UN force, also visited the shelter and denied guards had left their post overnight. He said responsibility for the nearly-10,000 evacuees rested with Haitian authorities.
But the Haitian government, still struggling to rebuild after years of turmoil, has been almost entirely dependent on overtaxed international aid groups and UN peacekeepers to cope with the disaster.
In the south-western town of Les Cayes, residents demanded government compensation for cows, goats and even TV sets they lost in the flood.
“It rained for two days without stopping,” said 44-year-old farmer Marcel Delswain. “We lost our land. We lost our food. We feel abandoned.”
Agricultural fields have turned into lakes as water cascaded down eroded mountains, pumping plumes of sediment into the Caribbean Sea.
Rains let up in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, however, allowing flights carrying urgently needed relief supplies. An estimated 67,000 Dominicans were left homeless.
Tropical Storm Noel killed at least 57 people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic has confirmed 84 deaths from the storm. Noel killed at least one person each in Jamaica and the Bahamas, and prompted the evacuation of 30,000 people in Cuba, where 60% of roads and highways were damaged or flooded.
