Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

Pathfinder · Jan 15, 2010

Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

Law and order began to break down in Haiti as "constant" gunshots were heard across the capital and shops were looted.

By Aislinn Laing and Tom Leonard in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republican
Published: 7:54PM GMT 14 Jan 2010

A resident loots food from the Caribbean supermarket in downtown Port-au-Prince after a major earthquake hit Haitian capital. Photo: REUTERS

Aid groups in Port-au-Prince said the relief effort could be hampered by the deteriorating security situation as criminals and desperate locals fought for the scarce resources.

More than 3,500 US troops are due to arrive in the country by the end of the week to bolster around 3,000 police and international peacekeepers who were said to have been deployed to secure the airport, port and main buildings.

But charity workers said they had seen little evidence of the security measures and warned of widespread looting and fights breaking out over dwindling water supplies.

Read more at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...nic-as-locals-fight-back-against-looters.html

Pathfinder · Jan 15, 2010

Re: Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=624 border=0 itxtvisited="1"><TBODY itxtvisited="1"><TR itxtvisited="1"><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 15px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 25px" vAlign=top width="1%" itxtvisited="1">Looters raid U.N. food warehouses in Haiti

Aid effort complicated by bad roads, ruined seaport, overwhelmed airport

Carlos Barria / Reuters

A looter takes food from a damaged supermarket in downtown Port-au-Prince on Thursday.

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<SCRIPT language=JavaScript>var tcdacmd="dt";</SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://an.tacoda.net/an/13015/slf.js"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://an.tacoda.net/an/cda1.js"></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://anrtx.tacoda.net/rtx/r.js?cmd=WDN&si=13015&xs=3&pu=http%3A//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34829978/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/&v=5.0&cb=43027"></SCRIPT><IFRAME src="http://an.tacoda.net/an/tpp.html" frameBorder=0 width=0 height=0></IFRAME>

updated 36 minutes ago<SCRIPT language=javascript> function UpdateTimeStamp(pdt) { var n = document.getElementById("udtD"); if(pdt != '' && n && window.DateTime) { var dt = new DateTime(); pdt = dt.T2D(pdt); if(dt.GetTZ(pdt)) {n.innerHTML = dt.D2S(pdt,((''.toLowerCase()=='false')?false:true));} } } UpdateTimeStamp('633991606523500000');</SCRIPT>PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Looters have broken into U.N. food warehouses in Haiti's crumbled capital, an official said Friday, as security and logistical challenges mounted for groups trying to feed at least 2 million people reeling from a devastating earthquake.

The U.N. World Food Program had 15,000 tons of food aid in Haiti prior to Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, stocks designed for hurricane relief.

Spokeswoman Emilia Casella said local partners reported that the U.N. warehouse in Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil neighborhood was looted but the agency did not know how much aid was stolen or exactly when it was taken.

She did not give details of the other looted warehouses, but said much of the agency's food stocks were located outside the capital.

Read more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34829978/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

Pathfinder · Jan 18, 2010

Re: Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

From The Times
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January 18, 2010

Lynch mobs turn on looters amid Haiti aid crisis

Six days after the Port-au-Prince earthquake large areas of the city remain untouched by the global aid effort as bottlenecks continue to clog the airport and looting threatens to descend into wholesale violence.

Convoys of lorries headed for the city?s worst-hit areas last night but there were signs they had come too late to prevent another tragedy, with Haitians turning on each other.

Mobile water stations were mobbed by crowds who have lived without basic sanitation for nearly a week. By text message and word of mouth, reports spread of a woman decapitated for whatever she had been carrying near one of the few functioning markets. Police shot and killed a man suspected of looting. Where police failed to intervene, crowds resorted to lynching, leaving fresh bodies on streets just cleared of those left by the earthquake.

Read more at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6991810.ece

Pathfinder · Jan 18, 2010

Re: Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

<TABLE class=gallery-slideshow-table><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle>

</TD></TR><TR><TD>Chaotic conditions

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / January 17, 2010) On the first Sunday after the quake, at 9:00am in the morning, the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince are filled with people scavenging. Onlookers add to the crowd.

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>Scavenging and violence

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / January 17, 2010) Looters continue to steal over the body of a man who has just been shot and killed by police in central Port-au-Prince.

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>Suspected looters

(Shawn Thew / European Pressphoto Agency / January 17, 2010) A crowd of people looks at two men who were caught stealing and were bound and shot on Delmas Road in Port-au-Prince. The man in the yellow shirt was still alive after being shot through the head, but neither the national police nor the general public expressed any concern.

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>Walking the streets

(Shawn Thew / European Pressphoto Agency / January 17, 2010) People raise their arms as the national police fire shots at looters in Port-au-Prince. Police are on patrol as people dig through rubble trying to find supplies.

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</TD></TR><TR><TD>Scavenging

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / January 16, 2010) People swarm a building in downtown Port-au-Prince, where the number of people scavenging continues to rise.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-haiti-earthquake-pictures,0,5859695.photogallery

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Pathfinder · Jan 18, 2010

Re: Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

Haiti fears grow despite relief surge

19/01/2010 | 02:55 AM

Haiti relief efforts have stepped up a gear with the arrival of thousands more US Marines, while doctors and aid workers have been struggling to save lives and stave off disease six days after the quake.

Despite the massive international effort spearheaded by the United States, security fears grew as television pictures showed troops in combat gear firing off rounds and hauling looters to the ground in the capital Port-au-Prince on Monday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that violence by desperate Haitians was growing, although Lieutenant-General Ken Keen, the top US officer on the ground, insisted: "The level of violence we see now is below pre-earthquake levels."

Read more at:
http://karratha.igwn.com.au/index.p...aiti-fears-grow-despite-relief-surge,15692781

Pathfinder · Jan 18, 2010

Re: Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=t11 id=inputDate>Last update - 12:49 18/01/2010 </TD><TD>

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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=t18B vAlign=top colSpan=2>Riots and anger on the streets of Haiti </TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top colSpan=2>

</TD></TR><TR><TD class=t11B vAlign=top colSpan=2>By News Agencies </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Excerpt:

"Also Monday, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he planned to ask the Security Council to temporarily increase the UN's force. There are currently about 7,000 UN military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.

The troop increase and an expected request to the UN for more peacekeepers were coming a day after sporadic violence and looting in Port-au-Prince underscored how an uptick in water and food deliveries still fell far short of demand.

"We don't need military aid. What we need is food and shelter," one young man yelled at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his visit to the city Sunday. "We are dying," a woman told him, explaining she and her five children didn't have any food.

Haitian riot police meanwhile fired tear gas to disperse crowds of looters in the city's downtown as several nearby shops burned. Police stopped reporters from heading into the center of Port-au- Prince around LaVille, near the presidential palace, because of shooting and riots.

"They are shooting everybody, journalists, policemen. There are the bad guys," said one Haitian police officer said.

"We've been ordered not to shoot at people unless completely necessary," said Pierre Roger, another officer who spoke as yet another crowd of looters ran by. "We're too little, and these people are too desperate."

Entire article at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143390.html

Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters

Pathfinder

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Pathfinder

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Pathfinder

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Pathfinder

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Pathfinder

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Pathfinder

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