Photo: Anthony Morland/IRIN

Sense of security… but the LRA has even infiltrated towns where UN and Congolese forces are based

NIANGARA, 5 May 2010 (IRIN) - They may number as few as 100 men, women and adolescents, but Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) units scattered across the forests of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Orientale Province have sown sufficient terror to make some 318,000 people take flight, abandoning their homes and fields, in many cases to the uncertain sanctuary of urban centres.

Their fear is far from misplaced, for extreme brutality is a tactic in the survival strategy of the northern Ugandan rebel group, which has killed almost 2,000 people in Orientale since December 2007, mostly in the districts of Haut- and Bas-Uele.

Lacking supply lines and widely dispersed since a botched air raid in December 2008, the small groups of LRA fighters operate independently of each other and live off the land; that is to say, off the local population’s produce and livestock. Since this population has no desire to share what little they have with a rebellion in which they have no stake at all, they are made to leave.

“The violence of its attacks and the suffering it causes are intended to frighten villagers into not giving its pursuers the information they need to wage a counter-insurgency campaign and to frighten civilians away so they can move with less chance of being spotted,” the International Crisis Group said in a recent report on the LRA.

Such calculatedly brutal logic is hard to explain to the victims of violence.

“What can you tell a woman who’s had her lips and ears cut off for nothing?” UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said after visiting the Haute-Uele town of Niangara, the geographical centre of Africa, during a tour of DRC’s most troubled areas.

Though the crisis group’s press release doesn’t say it, it is always important — and accurate — to emphasize the enormous damage the LRA always, always wreaks upon kids. Children are LRA chief Joseph Kony’s favorite target because they are so vulnerable and, therefore, more easily manipulated. Ending the LRA is a children’s rights issue foremost. Here’s the press release.

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW REPORT

Nairobi/Brussels, 28 April 2010: To make an end of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) once and for all, national armies, the UN and civilians need to pool intelligence and coordinate their efforts in new and creative ways.

LRA: A Regional Strategy beyond Killing Kony, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines how what was once an insurgency in northern Uganda has become a regional humanitarian and security problem that requires a regional solution. Operation Lightning Thunder, the Ugandan army’s latest attempt to crush the LRA, has been a military fiasco. After the initial attack on their hideout in a Congolese national park in December 2008, small groups of fighters dispersed more widely in the Congo (Democratic Republic), South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR). They immediately committed a series of massacres of villagers to show they retained their power and continue to survive by preying on civilians.

“National security forces are too weak to protect their own people, while the Ugandan army, with U.S. support, is focused on hunting Joseph Kony, the group’s leader”, says Edward Dalby, Crisis Group’s Central Africa Analyst. “The Ugandans have eroded the LRA’s numbers and made it difficult for scattered groups to communicate. But, even if they eventually kill or capture Kony, LRA fighters will remain a terrible danger to civilians in this mostly ungoverned frontier zone”.

The LRA has exploited the inability of the Congo, South Sudan and the CAR to control their border areas and benefited from insufficient coordination between their armies. Small, fast-moving groups of fighters attack unprotected villages to resupply with food and clothes and abduct new recruits before heading back to the cover of the forest. Killing and mutilating are part of a strategy of terror to dissuade survivors from cooperating with the Ugandan and other armies. The weakness of all three state security forces where the LRA now operates and the limited capacity of the UN missions in the Congo and South Sudan have left civilians no choice but to fend for themselves. The UN Security Council must ensure that the planned and gradual drawdown of MONUC (UN Mission Congo) leaves sufficient forces in the LRA-affected areas in the Congo.

“To put an end to what has become a causeless and homeless rebellion, a new strategy is required that prioritises civilian protection, as well as a united effort among military and civilian actors within and across national boundaries”, says Thierry Vircoulon, Crisis Group’s Central Africa Project Director. “Because the need for security is urgent, flexible and innovative forms of cooperation between international, state and non-state actors are needed to counter the threat that operates in and exploits this semi-stateless zone”.

But not even a complete military victory over the LRA would guarantee an end to insecurity in northern Uganda. To do that, the Kampala government must treat the root causes of trouble in the area from which the LRA sprang more than twenty years ago, namely northern perceptions of economic and political marginalisation, and ensure the social rehabilitation of the north.

UNICEF mobilizing for Qinghai earthquake disaster

Majority of primary schools collapsed, urgent need for tents, winter clothing

BEIJING, 15 April 2010 –UNICEF will send urgently needed relief supplies for children affected by yesterday’s massive earthquake. The response will be coordinated with other UN agencies. The quake heavily damaged parts of remote Yushu Prefecture, a region mostly populated by Tibetan herdsmen. The quake, which was measured 7.1 by Chinese scientists, destroyed much of Jiegu (Pop. 100,000), the main town of Yushu Prefecture.

Approximately 617 deaths have been reported along with 9,110 injuries. Some 313 persons are missing and 100,000 are without shelter. On Wednesday night, many of Jiegu’s residents slept outside in sub-zero temperatures. The total population of Yushu Prefecture is 357,000 and the child population is 122,700.

According to Qinghai health authorities the maternal and child health hospital in Yushu County has collapsed in the earthquake. There is an urgent need for medical supplies and childbirth equipment.
 
“We are organizing assistance to support the Chinese government’s disaster response with a focus on the special needs of children and women,” said Dr. Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF Representative and UN Disaster Management Team Chair in China. “We are in constant consultation with our government partners to gather necessary information and it appears that there has been extensive destruction to homes, health facilities and schools.” 

According to local education bureau officials, 80 per cent of primary schools and 50 per cent of secondary schools in Yushu have been severely damaged affecting 22,719 students and 1,086 teachers. Although the quake struck before the start of classes on Wednesday morning, about half of the students in the sparsely populated region attend boarding schools. Authorities have requested UNICEF support to provide school tents, warm clothing, quilts and learning kits. 

As of late Wednesday at least 56 students and five teachers had been reported killed in the quake. Many more students are missing and thought to be buried. Complete information is still difficult to obtain in the remote mountainous area on the border between Qinghai Province and Tibet.

The most urgent humanitarian needs right now are for food, water, tents, shelter, clothes, blankets, quilts, essential household items, medical supplies and rescue equipment. At this time of year in this mountainous region temperatures reach below freezing overnight. UNICEF has emergency stocks of school tents, children’s winter clothes and blankets on hand and ready to be dispatched.

About UNICEF in China:
UNICEF first assisted China between 1947 and 1951, providing emergency services, food and nutrition, health and hygiene training during and after the war of liberation. In 1979 UNICEF officially commenced its cooperation with the Government of China to support child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence.

Courtesy of Unicef

Just got this press release in my email today anf thought it was worth posting in its entirety. Even as the media spotlight on Haiti fails, let’s not forget the threats facing its children, who are multilayered vulnerable - on top of the vulnerability they had before the earthquake because of their poverty, they now also face threats that come with homelessness, hygiene, disease and a shattered or shaky adult support system around them that would otherwise (or should otherwise) be watching out for them. So it’s good that groups such as ECPAT, Unicef, and Mais, the Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity, and the National Council for Children  are building and maintaining child protection efforts. Here also, is a link to a just-released Unicef report detailing what the agency has done for children in the three months following the Jan. 12 earthquake.  It can be found at: Here’s the release I talked about first:

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity), along with border organizations, UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), will begin a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the trafficking crisis and recommend an appropriate response to the problem.

ECPAT-USA has donated $15,000 to MAIS to help them with this project. Below is the latest press release by ECPAT-USA detailing how MAIS will use these funds.

———————————————-

March 12, 2010 (New York, NY) – ECPAT-USA, a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies to protect sexually exploited and trafficked children, announced that it has donated $15,000 to its Dominican Republican counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity).  The funds will be used to document the increasing numbers of trafficked children crossing the northern region of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic following Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January.

MAIS will work with representatives of other child welfare agencies, including UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), as well as border organizations in a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the crisis.  A combined report on their findings from the six-month project will be submitted to Dominican authorities, along with recommendations to help establish appropriate responses to the problem.

Leading the monitoring program are MAIS coordinators Maria Josefina Paulino and Luis Mendez Jimenez. They noted that the deadly earthquake has severely weakened border control, and this has led to more young children being trafficked out of Haiti and transported to the streets of Dominican Republic.  The children are compelled to earn money through such activities as begging, shining shoes, and selling peanuts or eggs to meet quotas established by their adult captors. They are often subject to physical and psychological abuse, or used as mules in drug trafficking and delivery.

“The situation has been worsening for several years, but we have especially noticed an increase in the presence of pre-adolescent children after the earthquake in January.  The children turn up in major tourist destinations such as Santo Domingo, Santiago, as well as Bavaro, Puerto Plata, and Punta Cana,” said Mr. Jimenez.  “They can be found begging at traffic lights, shopping malls and bus terminals, usually controlled by adults who pay for their capture in Haiti and their illegal transfer to the country.”

Carol Smolenski, Executive Director of ECPAT-USA, said donations to MAIS and similar organization are critical to help address a problem that has quickly become a global epidemic. 

“Children have always been easy victims for traffickers, but major disasters such as Haiti’s devastating earthquake create social and political chaos that disrupt families and severely impact the ability of law enforcement agencies to maintain civil control.  Criminal elements move in to exploit the situation at a time when governments and normal social safety nets are at their weakest.”

She added: “When offering donations, supplies and medical assistance to these devastated countries, it’s important to also consider agencies like MAIS, who sometimes are the last hope for many of these exploited children.”

In the past year, ECPAT International partnered with ethical retailer The Body Shop to campaign against global sex trafficking.  In the U.S., 60% of the proceeds from the sales from The Body Shop’s “Soft Hands, Kind Hearts” Hand Cream go to ECPAT-USA.  The organization also promotes the adoption of the Code of Conduct within the hotel industry and among tour operators and other members of the tourism sector.  The Code requires them to implement practical measures to prevent child sex tourism.

For more information, visit www.ecpatusa.org/.  You can also join ECPAT-USA on Facebook http://bit.ly/d63Xie) and follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/ecpatusa).

First, though, I need to comment on the press release below that I got last week. It laments that kids in an orphanage in Haiti weren’t allowed out of the country. I know nothing about this group, never heard of it. But the attitude that permeates this press release is that children are commodities to be moved around at the will of unrelated adults who think they know best. And when they’re poor children, especially poor children of color, why, it’s even more reason for foreigners to move them away from their homeland. What arrogance. What cavalier dismissal of these kids’ homeland, no matter how poor or ailing it is, and the attachments they hold to it, not to mention to whatever relatives they still may have in Haiti. It’s a good bet that some of these “orphans” still have living parents. I do feel for the prospective adoptive parents, but the kids should be the most important consideration, not any adults. So cheers for the Haitian government in slowing down these kids departure. In crises like the one Haitians are going through now, it’s way too easy to take advantage of kids. This story from Reuters confirms that such exploitation is, indeed, happening in Haiti.

The press release from the group, For His Glory Adoption Outreach, is pasted after descriptions taken verbatim from organizations’ Web sites of what some child-focused groups are doing in Haiti.

UNICEF

Photo from UNICEF

Assistance to unaccompanied children, who have lost or became separated from their families, is a focus of UNICEF’s Haitian humanitarian operations, in the wake of the deadly earthquake which struck on 12 January.

While it continues daily delivery of critical life-saving supplies such as water, nutrition, shelter and medicine (so far, UNICEF supplies for 250,000 children have arrived and are being distributed), UNICEF and partners like Save the Children have also begun registering unaccompanied children found in the streets of  Port au Prince. A programme will then begin to trace the families of these children, if they exist.

“Safe Spaces” for unaccompanied children including infants are now set up in the capital. These locations allow UNICEF and its partners to assist and protect children who have nowhere else to go, until their families are found or alternative arrangements are made.

Save the Children

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Jan. 30, 2010) — Seventeen days after the catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, Save the Children is distributing food rations to 200,000 children and families in partnership with the World Food Program.

Latest Field Report Highlights

• 144,158 beneficiaries have been reached to date. including medical supplies for about 85,000 in Leogane, Jacmel and Port-au-Prince.
• Our mobile clinic in Leogane continues seeing patients, roughly 100 per day. 70 health workers were trained in Leogane and another mobile clinic was established in Jacmel.
• 16 Child Friendly Spaces were established in Jacmel and Port-au-Prince, providiing activities for over 10,400 children for the past 10 days.

Orphans Blocked From Departing Haiti

Undefined Haitian exit procedures halts departure of humanitarian
paroled orphans

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (MMD Newswire) January 26, 2010 --
Seventy-nine of the 106 children from Maison des Enfants de Dieu
(Children of the House of God) orphanage, who were granted
humanitarian parole, arrived in Florida on Saturday, January 23rd.
The Haitian Government has blocked the remaining 27 children,
including the adopted son of the For His Glory (FHG) Adoption
Outreach President, Kim Harmon, from departing Port-au-Prince. In
a surprise announcement, Haitian Prime Minister Bellerive stated
that all future cases of humanitarian parole would have to complete
an exit process with his office. He has not yet defined this exit
process so no action can be taken to bring the remaining children to
their adoptive parents in the United States.

The Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage staff announced that
they soon would be accepting 30 children orphaned since the
January 12th earthquake. Over the past week, the orphanage has
received numerous requests to take newly orphaned children. In
one instance alone, it was asked to accept 70 orphans. The
orphanage and FHG remain firmly committed to the children and the
people of Haiti. Pat Flowers, an FHG board member who has been
in Haiti this past week consulting with the orphanage staff, agreed,
"we must act responsibly in accepting new orphans to ensure that
we will have sufficient supplies and facilities to care for these
children." Pat explained that not only is each child, who is united with

adoptive parents, helped, but much-needed space is opened up at
the orphanage to help other children. He added, "The need in
Port-au-Prince is great."

Kim Harmon reiterated the need to quickly complete the departure
process of the remaining 27 children, who have been granted
humanitarian parole. She stated "These children have adoptive
families waiting to care for them in the United States. The faster we
resolve the departure issue, the quicker we will be able to reach out
to those unfortunate children in Port-au-Prince who now have no
one." FHG urges adoptive parents, supporters and all those
concerned about the welfare of the orphans in Haiti to contact their
Congressmen, Senators, Governors and the White House to urge
the Secretary of State to quickly resolve this issue with Prime Minister Bellerive.

Aid Frustration: ‘We’re racing against the clock’: Thousands waiting for food, water, medical care

By Marisol Bello and Donna Leinwand
PETIONVILLE, Haiti — Haitian physician Reginald Lubin wanted to help earthquake victims at a hospital in this suburb of Port-au-Prince on Sunday, but medical supplies and equipment were scarce.

“What would I say to the patient?” Lubin lamented. “Look at them and say, ‘You are hurt?’ “

“The government is decapitated,” Lubin said. “People come here to help, and they do not know what to do or where to go. This is terrible.”

The worldwide effort to rescue battered Haiti entered its second week today with thousands of frustrated Haitians saying they are still waiting for food, water and medical care and are worried about violence.

As the United States and other nations stepped up their efforts Sunday to get aid to millions of people in need, some aid groups said the effort was in disarray.

“I’m satisfied that we’re doing everything we can,” said Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, who heads the military effort and was at an outpost with the 82nd Airborne. “Is there frustration? Absolutely. We see it. We feel it. We understand it. … We need to do more, and we’re going to do more.”

In one example of the logjam occurring in Haiti, Doctors Without Borders said one of its cargo planes carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing Saturday at Port-au-Prince and diverted to the Dominican Republic, causing a 24-hour delay. A second plane landed Sunday.

Aircraft have been barred from landing if they can’t take off with the fuel they have on board, said George Hood of the Salvation Army.

“You have to fly in with enough fuel to get out,” he said. His group has 1 million meals waiting in Miami to be shipped once transit can be arranged.

Throughout the country, injured victims still await the arrival of doctors and medical supplies. Doctors Without Borders teams are working in five Port-au-Prince hospitals, but only two are fully functional. A third “operating theater” has been created for minor surgeries only.

Those lucky enough to escape injury face the rising threat of disease and death while awaiting food, water and medicine. Sunday, a makeshift camp in Petionville with 450 displaced people received its first aid since the earthquake: packets of crackers and bottles of water.

Clemente Dirre, 29, a mechanic, said aid has yet to reach his neighborhood. “People are dying. They are thirsty. They are hungry.”

In Dirre’s neighborhood and others, people asked the same question: When would aid arrive? Handwritten signs hung at the entrance to tent camps announced the obvious: “We need help.”

“The kids are barefoot. They are poor. They don’t have anyone to direct the aid people their way,” he said. “The problems are from the top.”

Obama administration officials in charge of the relief effort defended the decisions, noting the airport is the only major hub in Haiti.

“It’s a challenging, challenging situation,” U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Rajiv Shah said. “We’re aware that we’re racing against the clock.”

U.S. forces arrived over the weekend with more than 600,000 humanitarian rations. Keen said paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne delivered more than 70,000 bottles of water and 130,000 rations Saturday, a pace that should accelerate each day. More supplies are arriving at the airport than can be delivered because of transportation issues.

“As we move other equipment in here, we’ll be able to get more ground transportation to increase our tentacles out into the countryside,” Keen said.

U.S. officials also began distributing 250,000 liters of water to 52 distribution sites over the weekend. On Sunday, six water purification units arrived from Dubai, for a total of 10 since the earthquake hit.

Some relief agency officials say the first days of a disaster are always tough, particularly when aid workers have been affected by the disaster.

“Everybody here went through the earthquake,” said David Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, which has Haitian staffers who lost relatives and homes. “They are traumatized at some level. I’m reluctant to be overly critical.”

Caryl Stern, president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, said Haiti’s density presents the opposite problem posed by the 2004 tsunami, spread among 14 countries. Unlike Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there are no nearby airports, hospitals or stores to use.

“None of that exists in Haiti,” Stern said. “I think they’re doing the absolute best they can with what they have to work with.”

Veterans of relief efforts and experts on the process say there’s a disconnect between an operation’s effectiveness and what people see on TV.

“You can’t mobilize that fast,” said Andrew Natsios, who headed the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 when the Indian Ocean tsunami killed nearly 230,000 people. “That does not mean the relief effort is not working. It simply means it takes time to put everything in place.”

Shah, the USAID administrator, told USA TODAY during a visit Saturday that he shares people’s frustrations, but he defended the response so far.

“We went ahead and identified what is needed and are working with the president of Haiti and with the United Nations to provide it,” Shah said.

Some private relief groups sympathize with U.S. officials and say everything possible is being done to reach victims. The problem, said Joy Portella of Mercy Corps, is that “no one can get in or out or move around” because of logistical problems.

“It’s hard to reach people,” said Henrietta Fore, USAID administrator in 2007-09. “The transportation is an enormous limitation.”

Jack Harrald, a Virginia Tech professor and expert in disaster management, said the problems begin with Haiti’s geography. “First of all, it’s an island,” he said. “It’s not like we can drive a bunch of 18-wheelers down there.”

With the main port decimated by the earthquake and the main airport slowly returning to life, all relief materials are “going through a very small pipeline,” Harrald said.

That would be the airport, which is operating without a tower and terminal that have been condemned. It has one runway. Despite that, U.S. military forces have supervised more than 600 takeoffs and landings in five days, said Col. Buck Elton, who arrived Wednesday to take charge of the airport. “As soon as one aircraft departs, we have another one arrive,” he said.

Roads are slowing aid down as well. Along Haiti’s eastern border with the Dominican Republic, only two roads are passable, said Ben Hemingway, director of international operations for the International Medical Corps. A bottleneck is forming as refugees stream toward the border. Dominican authorities, fearing an influx of refugees, have clamped down on border crossings.

“All of these things are slowing down their ability to process large convoys,” Hemingway said.

‘Going to get more difficult’

Government officials past and present agree on one thing: The problems will only mount. With the Haitian government severely hampered, a central question must be answered: Who’s in charge?

The Obama administration refuses to step forward, insisting it is helping Haiti and the United Nations, along with other international partners. But there’s little question it is playing the dominant role.

The United States has “very appropriately taken the lead internationally,” said Tom Ridge, the nation’s first secretary of Homeland Security. “There’s no country better positioned to help orchestrate it or lead it than the United States.”

With Port-au-Prince prisoners on the loose and residents desperate for food and water, safety is becoming an ever-present concern.

Just outside the Port-au-Prince cemetery’s gates Sunday, a young man shot three times lay dying on the sidewalk. Residents said he and three others had been shot by police for stealing. Three of the men died.

“They lined up all four and shot them. This one took three shots,” said Clifford Cadet, 15, who watched from across the street.

Lubin, the doctor in Petionville, said people are attacking others on streets and in parks that have become temporary homes.

“People are getting mad and worried,” he said. “Things are going to get out of hand. … It’s starting already. You will not give it to them? Fine, then they will come and take it.”

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of residents fled to Houston, Atlanta and other cities for shelter and services. In Haiti, there’s nowhere to go.

Former FEMA official Mark Ghilarducci, who responded to an earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995, said military-style tent cities may be needed first.

“This is a very complicated situation because of the fact that Haiti’s so isolated,” he said. “There may be a segment that needs to be moved to another place in the world.”

Faced with all those problems, Kerline Auguste, 16, sees no hope for Haiti. She survived two days under the rubble of her house with her 18-month-old son; her parents and her son’s father perished.

“The only thing I dream about is leaving this country, because I have no hope in the future,” she said. “Even God can’t help us. The situation is too bad.”

Contributing: Jim Michaels and Ken Dilanian in Port-au-Prince; Mimi Hall in Washington; Richard Wolf and Oren Dorell in McLean, Va.

The question in Haiti right now is whether the military is respecting NGOs and cooperating with them. Some NGOs are saying they are having trouble getting equipment in because the US military, which is in charge at the Port-au-Prince airport, is keeping civilian relief planes from landing to make way for military aircraft. Military leaders need not only to acknowledge that NGOs have the most and best experience at providing direct relief to victims, there also should be regular coordination between militaries, NGOs and UN groups working in Haiti.

Haitian President Rene Preval needs to ask the UN to serve as the coordinator and then announce that act on behalf of the struggling government, which essentially was obliterated when the earthquake ruined most of Haiti’s capital of Port-Au-Prince. That would help quell criticisms that no one is in charge of the relief operation, a dangerous gap. Preval’s request for UN leadership would confer a legitimacy on one of the international organization’s agency, perhaps OCHA (Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), taking charge.

One other quick note. The criticism that the US military was favoring departures flying Americans back to the US seems warranted. To me, it’s one of the ways race is a factor in various aspects of this crisis.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, 17 January 2010 (IRIN) - Haiti’s tiny international airport has been overwhelmed by the international response to the earthquake disaster, clogging up the emergency effort, according to aid workers.
 
“The airport in Port-au-Prince does not have the capacity to handle so many aircraft,” Juan Carlos Porcella, the head of the civil aviation authority in neigbouring Dominican Republic told IRIN. “You have planes sitting for hours on the runway. No one wants to take responsibility to unload.”

The Haitian and Dominican governments are planning an alternative 130km humanitarian road corridor to deliver relief supplies from the Dominican southern town of Barahona to Port-au-Prince, to be secured by UN peacekeepers.

“The Haitian airport now is overwhelmed,” said UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Edmond Mulet.

The US government stepped in to help at the overstretched airport on 15 January by taking control and allowing in only humanitarian flights.

While some 180 tons of food aid had arrived by 15 January, getting the supplies out of the airport and into the hands of the needy has been a major hurdle, according to Kim Bolduc, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti.

“You have no idea the state of the roads…The traffic is dense. We may need to change the time of [food] distribution,” she said. While main roads are reportedly open, secondary roads are still blocked.

On 16 January the World Food Programme provided an estimated 39,000 people with high energy biscuits, water purification tablets and water containers. It could reach only 9,000 on 14 January.

The government estimates three million people lived in the area hit by the 12 January earthquake.

When asked about criticisms that relief has been slow to get to the people, the UN’s Bolduc replied: “Before the earthquake, Haiti was already a fragile state, and now almost everything has stopped [working]. The government is doing its best.”

Local media reported that 27 out of 30 senators died in the quake, and half of the national police force has not been located, along with their equipment.

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