Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs

HAITI PAYS DEARLY FOR WORLD CONCERN.

Article Excerpt
Hurricane Jeanne may have provided a disappointing answer to the question, "What is it going to take to get Haiti the sustained support it needs to build a country out of chaos?" In the aftermath of the storm that proved devastation could always get worse, help has come in a variety of forms. Before the storm, peacekeeping forces had complained their numbers were insufficient, their funding too paltry, and their support from the interim government too ephemeral to bring order to Haiti and set a foundation for its re-emergence as a functioning country.

After a week studded with uncertain but rising death tolls, looting, panicky assaults on food supplies, incipient epidemic disease from rotting corpses, waterborne filth, and exposure to rain and contagion on crowded rooftops, the UN is sending more troops.

Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Periera, head of the peacekeeping force, guessed the number of dead at a minimum of 1,500, the number of homeless at 200,000 in Gonaives alone. He called the situation critical. He spoke of diarrhea and gangrene, of lacerations from zinc roofing hidden in mud, of amputations performed under horrendous conditions.

Anne Poulson of the UN World Food Program (WFP) reported shipments blocked by mudslides. "We unloaded the food from trucks and put it on to donkeys and...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!