Haitians Frustrated at Slow Pace of Aid
  • 14 years ago
Food, water and supplies were coming into Port-au-Prince at a very slow pace on Saturday. Haitians were frustrated and scuffles were breaking out at distribution locations.

The United Nations was feeding 40,000 people a day and hoped to increase to a million within two weeks.

A makeshift camp was set up on the golf course of the Petionville Country Club in the Haitian capital, with UN soldiers distributing their own food rations to the thousands of starving survivors.

But the unruly crowd forced the soldiers to walk away.

[Quake Victim]:
“The way they just dump the food from the helicopters, it's awful. Most people here don't get any food, people start fighting, banging heads and breaking bones. It's complete disorder.”

One mile away in Canape Vert, similar scenes of chaos filled a square where the World Food Program was trying to distribute high-energy biscuits and food rations.

As crowds grew more restless, security concerns forced the international organization to abandon the exercise altogether.

[Quake Victim]:
“I wasn't one of the ones fighting. I have seven kids, and we lost everything. I wasn't fighting! If they could only give us something. It's unfair. I am an adult. I don't fight.”

Haiti is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country and has for decades struggled with devastating storms, floods and political unrest.