Top News
Haiti chaos hampers aid delivery; death toll rises
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-19 21:33
 |
Large Medium Small |
Elsewhere, overwhelmed surgeons appealed for anesthetics, scalpels, and saws for cutting off crushed limbs. Former US President Bill Clinton, visiting one hospital, reported its staff had to use vodka to sterilize equipment. "It's astonishing what the Haitians have been able to accomplish," he said.
Front-line relief workers made some headway. By 7 a.m. Monday, an Israeli military field hospital had treated 196 people. "We understand it's a drop in a big sea," said facility spokesman Avi Berman.
Violence added to complications in places. Medical relief workers said they were treating gunshot wounds in addition to broken bones and other quake-related injuries. Nighttime was especially perilous and locals were forming night brigades and machete-armed mobs to fight bandits across the capital.
"It gets too dangerous," said Remi Rollin, an armed private security guard hired by a shopkeeper to ward off looters. "After sunset, police shoot on sight."
In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are reassuming control after escaping from the city's notorious main penitentiary and police urge citizens to take justice into their own hands.
Alain Le Roy, the UN peacekeeping chief, cited the often unruly crowds at points where food and water is being distributed and said Haitian police had returned to the streets in only "limited numbers."
A Security Council vote was expected to add 1,500 more UN police and 2,000 more peacekeepers to join the 9,000 or so UN security personnel in Haiti.
Thousands are streaming out of Port-au-Prince, crowding aboard buses headed toward countryside villages. Charlemagne Ulrick planned to stay behind after putting his three children on a truck for an all-day journey to Haiti's northwestern peninsula.
"They have to go and save themselves," said Ulrick, a dentist. "I don't know when they're coming back."
US and Haitian officials also warned any efforts of Haitians to reach the United States by boat would be thwarted. Haiti's ambassador in Washington, Raymond Joseph, recorded a message in Creole to his countrymen, urging them not to leave.
"If you think you will reach the US and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the case," Joseph said, according to a transcript on America.gov, a State Department Web site. "And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from."
