Global General
More troops, aid go to Haiti, but hunger persists
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-19 06:31
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 People begs for food and water outside a supermarket in Port-au-Prince, Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. Troops, doctors and aid workers flowed into Haiti on Monday even while hundreds of thousands of Tuesday's quake victims struggled to find water or food. [Agencies] |
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Troops, doctors and aid workers flowed into Haiti on Monday and officials said billions of dollars more will be needed following the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and left many still struggling to find a cup of water or a handful of food.
European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars in emergency and long-term aid, on top of at least $100 million promised earlier by the US. The president of the neighboring Dominican Republic said it will cost far more to finally rebuild the country: $10 billion.
Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered up broken walls to break into shops and take whatever they can find. Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decaying bodies.
At a collapsed and burning shop in the market area, youths used broken bottles, machetes and razors to battle for bottles of rum and police fired shots to break up the crowd.
"I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage," said Jean-Pierre Junior, wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to protect his bottle of rum.
Even so, the US Army's on-the-ground commander, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, said the city is seeing less violence than before the earthquake. "Is there gang violence? Yes. Was there gang violence before the earthquake? Absolutely."
US officials say some 2,200 Marines were arriving to join 1,700 US troops now on the ground and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Monday he wants 1,500 more UN police and 2,000 more troops to join the existing 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.
While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of US citizens, or people claiming to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the US Embassy in hopes of arranging a flight out of the country.
Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, hosting an international meeting to plan strategy for Haiti, said it would cost $10 billion over five years to reconstruct the country and confront the immediate emergency.
Roughly 200,000 people may have been killed in the magnitude-7.0 quake, the European Union said, quoting Haitian officials who also said about 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far.
EU officials estimated that about 250,000 were injured and 1.5 million were homeless.
Even many people whose houses survived are sleeping outside for aftershocks will collapse unstable buildings. And while the UN said that more than 73,000 people have received a week's rations, many more still wait.So many people have lost homes that the World Food Program is planning a tent camp for 100,000 people _ an instant city the size of Burbank, California _ on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, according to the agency's country director, Myrta Kaulard.
About 50,000 people already sleep each night on the city golf course where the US 82nd Airborne Division has set up an aid camp.
In town, bodies still lay in the street six days after the quake, but Haitians had made progress in hauling many away for burial or burning. People were seen dragging corpses to intersections in hopes that garbage trucks or aid groups would arrive to take them away.
