Posted on 09/24/2004 3:41:57 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult
GONAIVES, Haiti -- Hungry, thirsty and increasingly desperate residents attacked each other in a panic to get scarce food and water Thursday as workers struggled to bury hundreds of corpses six days after the city was struck by Tropical Storm Jeanne.
More than 1,100 were killed and 1,250 are missing, and the toll was rising. The storm left 250,000 homeless in Haiti's northwest province, which includes the port of Gonaives.
Health workers feared an epidemic of disease in the country's third-largest city from the unburied dead, overflowing raw sewage, lack of potable water, and infections from injuries. Some people already were falling ill.
Police erected barbed wire around their station Thursday after shots were fired at the station overnight.
Most of the police also were left homeless by the floods and had only one vehicle, and that one wasn't working, officer Louis Francois said. Their helplessness enraged residents, who have started throwing rocks at the few riot police the government sent in to help.
"We were saved from the floods, but now my baby is sick," said Marilucie Fortune, 30, who gave birth to a son in a slum last weekend, as Jeanne pounded Haiti with torrential rain for 30 hours. Jeanne has since become a hurricane, churning toward the Bahamas with 105 mph winds and a track that forecasters say could lead to Florida this weekend.
Haiti's civil protection agency said more than 900 people have been treated for injuries, mostly cuts or gashes from debris. Medics from U.N. peacekeeping troops have pitched in.
The General Hospital -- still knee-deep in mud -- was out of commission, medical supplies are running out, and some aid trucks were unable to reach the city because part of the road was washed away.
Hundreds of people pushed through a wooden barrier to crowd into Gonaives' sole working clinic for treatment, where one doctor was on duty.
Workers dug new mass graves for bodies half-buried in the mud, trapped in collapsed homes or floating in floodwaters that still ran knee-deep in places.
"There are so many bodies, you smell them but you don't see them," said farmer Louise Roland, who like many held a lime to her nose to mask the stench.
Some residents of the seaside slum of Carenage had grown so desperate to get rid of the decaying corpses that they were burying the unidentified victims in their backyards. That could cause yet another health hazard since the bodies easily could be forced up from shallow seaside graves.
"We need surgical masks, water and food," said Frantz Bernier, who was burning tires to protest the lack of government help. "We don't have anything."
By Thursday, 1,105 bodies had been recovered -- the vast majority in Gonaives -- with 1,250 missing and nearly 1,000 injured, according to Dieufort Deslorges, spokesman for the government's civil protection agency.
"It's a critical situation in terms of epidemics, because of the bodies still in the streets, because people are drinking dirty water and scores are getting injuries from debris -- huge cuts that are getting infected," said Francoise Gruloos, Haiti director for the U.N. Children's Fund.
Martine Vice-Aimee, an 18-year-old mother of two whose home was destroyed, said people already were "getting sick from the water."
"They're walking in it, their skin is getting itchy and rashes. The water they're drinking is giving them stomach aches," she said.
Limited distribution by aid workers left most people still hungry and thirsty.
"We can only drink the water people died in," complained farmer Jean Lebrun.
Aid agencies have dry food stocked in Gonaives, but few have the means to cook. Food for the Poor, based in Deerfield, Fla., said its truckloads of relief were unable to reach the city Wednesday. Troops from the Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping forcing were ferrying in supplies by helicopter.
Peacekeepers fired into the air Wednesday to keep a crowd at bay as aid workers handed out loaves of bread -- the first food in days for some.
Police said they feared attack by about 20 prisoners who escaped from jail during the storm.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies appealed for $3.3 million to fund relief operations, and several nations were sending help.
The U.S. government will provide more than $2 million in immediate disaster relief to Haiti's flood victims in the coming days, USAID spokesman Jose Fuentes said.
Haiti was especially susceptible to Jeanne's rain-laden system, because more than 98 percent of the land is deforested and torrents of water and mudslides smashed down denuded hills and into the city. Floodwater lines on buildings went up to 10 feet high.
The disaster follows devastating floods in May, along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, which left 1,191 dead and 1,484 missing in Haiti and 395 dead and 274 missing on the Dominican side. The countries share the island of Hispaniola.
Haiti: Workers hastily digging mass graves
Numbers are now at 300,000+ homeless.
I won't give to the International Red Cross, do give to our local Red Cross affiliate.
Catholic Charities is collecting funds for Haiti and their record of distribution is excellent.
For Catholic Virginians, this Sunday's special collection is for Hurricane disaster relief.
Not to underestimate the impact on Haiti, but why didn't the press provide as much attention to the devastation in Grenada?
Prayers for all the people impacted by these storms.
The muslims are in Haiti and not all the work they do will be humanitarian...
It's not even a Catholic organization. Save your money for the Salvation Army, or even the Red Cross (though the Red Cross has a bad administration record). Send money to those who need it, not to bureacrats and 'delivery structure'.
Not to be picky, but Catholic Charities is rated 19 in effectiveness while Salvation Army is ranked 44.
I don't give a dime to Red Cross - I have "family" working for them..........
Well, because poor, black, non-English speaking people are better victims than white, well-to-do, English speaking folk. It just fits in with the liberal agenda alot better. You know, the whole "rich, white people deserve to suffer, lose thier homes, family, way of life etc. in a natural disaster...since they should have been redistributing their wealth to the poor and minorities. They're getting their punishment for being rich and white now HA!" Classic, evil, racist, liberal, entitlement, socialism dontchaknow. I'll forward you the memo.
Actually, it should read Numbers are now at 300,000+ hutless
Haiti got more exposure because the devastation was greater, and they have fewer resources to deal with it.
It isn't political, racial, yadda yadda...
Very sad, Hati is a mess to begin with let alone this tragedy.
Grenada's devastation was no less great, especially regarding the poor. The press barely reported it, though.
Just musing if Haiti has "liberal-favored-nation" status, and Grenada just doesn't fit their standards - are they still miffed at Reagan's intervention to kick out the leftists in Grenada, and are anxious to prop up Clinton's support of Aristede?
I didn't think Grenada lost as much property and lives as Haiti.
And I don't think it has favored status. The relief effort trips I made there were not political or liberal in nature.
I thought Clinton restored and saved Haiti??
Do you know how many people died in Grenada?
Get the U.N. to save them. What are we paying them for?
From what I've been able to gather, over 90% of the people are homeless. Tourism (their main revenue source) severely crippled long-term (hotels, roads, etc.) Major crop damage.
I'm not going to start minimizing what happened in Haiti - but have you considered that there might be reasons why the death toll is different? Infrastructure, topographic, economic, or cultural factors? How many died from the storm and how many from second-order effects (lack of sanitization?)
Claiming that this “excessive coverage” is some kind of anti-white anti-capitast racist conspiracy is the kind of kook nonsense that people quote in order to give FR a bad name.
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