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Haiti aid effort marred by slow U.N. response
Tom Brown
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:13pm EST
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A grave digger digs a grave at a mass grave in Titanyen, where tens of thousands of bodies have already been buried after the earthquake, outside of Port au Prince, Haiti February 25, 2010. REUTERS\/St-Felix Evens<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67226788&w=460&r=2010-02-26T141953Z_01_BTRE61P13TA00_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI-RELIEF', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67226788&w=50&r=2010-02-26T141953Z_01_BTRE61P13TA00_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI-RELIEF', "caption" : "
Survivors of Haiti's earthquake wait in line to get rice from U.S. soldiers as the Bolivian U.N. stand guard during a distribution of food operation in Port-au-Prince in this file image from February 3, 2010. REUTERS\/Eliana Aponte<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222169&w=460&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P11WV00_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222169&w=50&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P11WV00_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "caption" : "
The destroyed cathedral of Port-au-Prince is pictured at sunset, February 24, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222170&w=460&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13BY00_RTROPTP_0_HAITI-BRAZIL', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222170&w=50&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13BY00_RTROPTP_0_HAITI-BRAZIL', "caption" : "
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meets with troops from his country that are leading the MINUSTAH United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti, during a visit to Port- au-Prince February 25, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222172&w=460&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13BZ00_RTROPTP_0_HAITI-BRAZIL', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222172&w=50&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13BZ00_RTROPTP_0_HAITI-BRAZIL', "caption" : "
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva embraces Haitian President Rene Preval during a ceremony in which their ministers signed bilateral accords, in Port-au-Prince February 25, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222187&w=460&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13C000_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222187&w=50&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13C000_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "caption" : "
A man inspects the damage on his house after the earthquake at Fort National neighborhood in Port-au-Prince February 24, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ] }}); </SCRIPT>PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Clutching automatic assault rifles, truckloads of U.N. troops patrolled the streets of Haiti's shattered capital on the day after the earthquake hit last month, seemingly oblivious to the misery around them.
Cries for help from people digging for survivors in collapsed buildings were drowned out by the roar of heavy-duty engines as the troops plowed through Port-au-Prince without stopping to join rescue efforts, much less lead them.
A common sight since they were deployed in 2004, the U.N. troops huddled in the shade of their canopied vehicles.
There were about 9,000 uniformed U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Haiti when the quake struck on January 12 and they were the logical "first responders" to the disaster in the impoverished Caribbean country, whose notoriously weak central government was overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy.
Initially, however, none of the peacekeepers appeared to be involved in hands-on humanitarian relief in what emergency medical experts describe as the critical first 72 hours after a devastating earthquake strikes.
Their response to the appalling suffering was limited to handling security and looking for looters after the magnitude 7.0 quake leveled much of the capital and took what Haitian President Rene Preval says could be as many as 300,000 lives.
There was looting in the capital, but it paled in comparison with the severity of the humanitarian crisis.
Horribly-injured patients flooded overstretched hospitals, forcing medical staff to decide which patients to treat and which were already too far gone to try saving.
"Doctors played God," said Tyler Marshall, a veteran former Los Angeles
Times correspondent working with an international aid group that helped out in a tent city erected at the height of the carnage on the grounds of Port-au-Prince's University Hospital, the country's largest.
Scores of U.N. personnel died in the quake, including Hedi Annabi, head of the U.N. mission that was set up in 2004. That helps explain what many have criticized as a glacially slow kickoff of relief operations after one of history's worst natural disasters.
But in the days and weeks that followed it often seemed that lessons from other disasters were ignored in Haiti as fears of rioting or lawlessness overshadowed concerns about getting aid out quickly.
The U.N.'s top humanitarian aid official, John Holmes, is among those who have chided relief agencies, including the United Nations itself, for doing too little to help Haiti.
"We cannot ... wait for the next emergency for these lessons to be learned," Holmes wrote in a confidential email first published on the website of the journal Foreign Policy.
"There is an urgent need to boost significantly capacity on the ground, to improve coordination, strategic planning and provision of aid," said Holmes.
Edmond Mulet, acting head of the U.N. mission, acknowledged in an interview that it played a limited humanitarian role in the first few days after the earthquake since its operations were effectively decapitated.
"At the very beginning it was very difficult because all the headquarters was completely destroyed and all the leadership of the mission was killed," Mulet told Reuters.
Much more at:
Tom Brown
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:13pm EST
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva embraces Haitian President Rene Preval during a ceremony in which their ministers signed bilateral accords, in Port-au-Prince February 25, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ,{"image" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222187&w=460&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13C000_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "thumbnail" : '/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100226&t=2&i=67222187&w=50&r=2010-02-26T140928Z_01_BTRE61P13C000_RTROPTP_0_QUAKE-HAITI', "caption" : "
A man inspects the damage on his house after the earthquake at Fort National neighborhood in Port-au-Prince February 24, 2010. REUTERS\/Carlos Barria<\/p>"} ] }}); </SCRIPT>PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Clutching automatic assault rifles, truckloads of U.N. troops patrolled the streets of Haiti's shattered capital on the day after the earthquake hit last month, seemingly oblivious to the misery around them.
Cries for help from people digging for survivors in collapsed buildings were drowned out by the roar of heavy-duty engines as the troops plowed through Port-au-Prince without stopping to join rescue efforts, much less lead them.
A common sight since they were deployed in 2004, the U.N. troops huddled in the shade of their canopied vehicles.
There were about 9,000 uniformed U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Haiti when the quake struck on January 12 and they were the logical "first responders" to the disaster in the impoverished Caribbean country, whose notoriously weak central government was overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy.
Initially, however, none of the peacekeepers appeared to be involved in hands-on humanitarian relief in what emergency medical experts describe as the critical first 72 hours after a devastating earthquake strikes.
Their response to the appalling suffering was limited to handling security and looking for looters after the magnitude 7.0 quake leveled much of the capital and took what Haitian President Rene Preval says could be as many as 300,000 lives.
There was looting in the capital, but it paled in comparison with the severity of the humanitarian crisis.
Horribly-injured patients flooded overstretched hospitals, forcing medical staff to decide which patients to treat and which were already too far gone to try saving.
"Doctors played God," said Tyler Marshall, a veteran former Los Angeles
Times correspondent working with an international aid group that helped out in a tent city erected at the height of the carnage on the grounds of Port-au-Prince's University Hospital, the country's largest.
Scores of U.N. personnel died in the quake, including Hedi Annabi, head of the U.N. mission that was set up in 2004. That helps explain what many have criticized as a glacially slow kickoff of relief operations after one of history's worst natural disasters.
But in the days and weeks that followed it often seemed that lessons from other disasters were ignored in Haiti as fears of rioting or lawlessness overshadowed concerns about getting aid out quickly.
The U.N.'s top humanitarian aid official, John Holmes, is among those who have chided relief agencies, including the United Nations itself, for doing too little to help Haiti.
"We cannot ... wait for the next emergency for these lessons to be learned," Holmes wrote in a confidential email first published on the website of the journal Foreign Policy.
"There is an urgent need to boost significantly capacity on the ground, to improve coordination, strategic planning and provision of aid," said Holmes.
Edmond Mulet, acting head of the U.N. mission, acknowledged in an interview that it played a limited humanitarian role in the first few days after the earthquake since its operations were effectively decapitated.
"At the very beginning it was very difficult because all the headquarters was completely destroyed and all the leadership of the mission was killed," Mulet told Reuters.
Much more at:
