More peacekeepers expected for Haiti
Thousands of US Marines were expected off the shore of Port-au-Prince today to help relief organisations get supplies to Haitian earthquake survivors.
The troop increase and an expected request to the UN for more peacekeepers were coming a day after sporadic violence and looting in the capital underscored how a rise in water and food deliveries still fell far short of overwhelming demand.
"We don't need military aid. What we need is food and shelter," one young man yelled at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his visit to the city Sunday. "We are dying," a woman told him, explaining she and her five children did not have any food.
Haitian riot police meanwhile fired tear gas to disperse crowds of looters in the city's downtown as several nearby shops burned.
"We've been ordered not to shoot at people unless completely necessary," said Pierre Roger, a Haitian police officer. "We're too little, and these people are too desperate."
A reliable death toll may be weeks away, but the Pan American Health Organisation estimates 50,000 to 100,000 died in Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake. Haitian officials believe the number is higher. Survivors live outside for fear of unstable buildings and aftershocks.
On the streets, people were still dying, pregnant women were giving birth and the injured were showing up in wheelbarrows and on people's backs at hurriedly erected field hospitals.
Yesterday, supplies of water made it to more people around the capital and while fights broke out elsewhere, others formed lines to get supplies handed out by soldiers at a golf course.
Still, with a blocked city port and relief groups claiming the US-run airport is being poorly managed, food and medicine are scarce. Anger mounted hourly over the slow pace of the assistance.
At a destroyed nursing home, a 71-year-old resident said she could hold on for another day.
"Then if the foreigners don't come (with aid)," said Jacqueline Thermiti, "it will be up to baby Jesus."
Improbably, five days after the quake struck, more survivors were freed from under piles of concrete and debris.
At a collapsed supermarket, rescuers pulled two people from what had been its fourth floor. Officials said both were in stable condition, able to survive for so long by eating food trapped along with them. Earlier in the day, a policeman reported three other people had been rescued from market's rubble.
US teams with search dogs also found and rescued a 16-year-old Dominican girl trapped for five days in a small, three-storey hotel that crumbled in downtown Port-au-Prince.
At the destroyed UN headquarters, rescuers lifted a Danish staff member alive from the ruins, just 15 minutes after Secretary-General Ban visited the site, where UN mission chief Hedi Annabi and at least 39 other staff members were killed.
UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said it was possible people could survive until today, adding to the 70 lives saved by 1,700 rescue workers since the quake,
"There are still people living" in collapsed buildings, she said. "Hope continues."
The UN World Food Program was on target to reach more than 60,000 people, said spokesman David Orr.
But the Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders said bluntly: "There is little sign of significant aid distribution."
The aid group complained of skewed priorities and a supply bottleneck at the US-controlled airport. Doctors Without Borders spokesman Jason Cone said the US military needed "to be clear on its prioritisation of medical supplies and equipment".
The on-the-ground US commander in Haiti, Lt Gen. Ken Keen, acknowledged the bottleneck problem. "We're working aggressively to open up other ways to get in here," he said.
Part of that will be fixing Port-au-Prince's harbour, rendered useless for incoming aid because of quake damage.
The White House said that the US Coast Guard ship Oak had arrived and would use heavy cranes and other equipment to make the port functional.
Some 2,000 Marines were also to arrive off Haiti today, Keen said, reinforcing 1,000 US troops on the ground.
Former US President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, was expected to visit the country and meet with President Rene Preval.
Also today, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he planned to ask the Security Council to temporarily increase the UN's force. There are currently about 7,000 UN military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.
| Related Stories: |
|
