Top 2 U.N. officials in Haiti died in quake

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Top 2 U.N. officials in Haiti died in quake

<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>if(location.hostname.indexOf( 'edition.' ) > -1) {document.write('January 16, 2010 -- Updated 2255 GMT (0655 HKT)');} else {document.write('January 16, 2010 5:55 p.m. EST');}</SCRIPT>January 16, 2010 5:55 p.m. ESTJanuary 16, 2010 5:55 p.m. EST


(CNN) -- The top two civilian officials at the U.N. mission in Haiti were killed in Tuesday's earthquake, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed Saturday.

Special Representative Hedi Annabi and his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, have died, Ban said in a written statement.

Acting U.N. Police Commissioner in Haiti Doug Coates also died, he said.

The headquarters of the U.N. mission in Haiti, a peacekeeping and police force established after the 2004 ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, collapsed during the quake.

Annabi and da Costa had been believed to be trapped under the rubble.

"In every sense of the word, they gave their lives for peace," Ban said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/16/haiti.un.representatives/index.html

 

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Re: Top 2 U.N. officials in Haiti died in quake

U.N. confirms death of Haiti mission chief Annabi

Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:11pm GMT

<SCRIPT language=javascript> var storyKeywords = "OUKWD UK QUAKE HAITI ANNABI"; var RTR_ArticleTitle = "U.N. confirms death of Haiti mission chief Annabi"; var RTR_ArticleBlurb = "UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. mission chief in Haiti, Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, died in Tuesday's earthquake that devastated the country's capital, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Saturday. He was believed to be 65. In a..."; </SCRIPT><SCRIPT type=text/javascript>var showComments = false;var allowSLCall = false; function singlePageView() { document.location.href = ReplaceQueryStringParam(document.location.href, "sp", "true"); } function replaceString(oldS, newS, fullS) { // Replaces oldS with newS in the string fullS for (var i = 0; i < fullS.length; i++) { if (fullS.substring(i, i + oldS.length) == oldS) { fullS = fullS.substring(0, i) + newS + fullS.substring(i + oldS.length, fullS.length); } } return fullS; } </SCRIPT>



<SCRIPT>var csvSymbolIds = "";var quoteLink = "false";</SCRIPT><TABLE style="FLOAT: left" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=articlePhoto id=articlePhoto vAlign=center align=middle></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. mission chief in Haiti, Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, died in Tuesday's earthquake that devastated the country's capital, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Saturday.

He was believed to be 65.

In a statement, Ban also confirmed the death of Annabi's deputy, Brazilian Luiz Carlos da Costa, and of the acting U.N. police commissioner in Haiti, Doug Coates of Canada.

Ban gave no details of how the bodies of the three men had been found, but the world body said earlier this week they were under the rubble of the Hotel Christopher, the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, and could be alive or dead.

Haitian President Rene Preval said on Wednesday that Annabi had died, but the United Nations said at the time it could not yet confirm that.

Annabi is the first U.N. mission chief to die in the line of duty since Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil was killed along with 14 other U.N. staff when a truck bomb exploded outside the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.

Ban described Annabi as "the gold standard of service against which all who had the privilege to work with him were measured." He hailed the Tunisian's "unparalleled work ethic -- he was the first in and the last out every day for his entire career."

After working in the Tunisian foreign service, Annabi joined the United Nations in 1981. For nearly a decade he worked on a political settlement in Cambodia before joining the U.N. peacekeeping department where he rose to be an assistant secretary-general. He had held the Haiti job since 2007.

Read more at:
http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFTRE60F2CJ20100116