THE HAITIAN government yesterday announced it will relocate up to 400,000 residents of the ruined capital to new villages outside the city. Each village will house up to 10,000 people.
Brazilian peacekeepers have already begun levelling ground for a temporary tent camp at Croix-des-Bouquets, north of Port-au-Prince, where the Inter-American Development Bank plans to build houses for 30,000.
Haitians would pay for the homes under a food-for-work scheme. “The government has made free transportation available to people,” interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé said. “A large operation is taking place: we’re in the process of relocating homeless people.”
The government dispatched at least 34 buses to take victims to the south and north of the country, and is consulting with local mayors to identify sites for new villages. Brightly painted public buses roamed the city to pick up passengers. The government plan strengthened a spontaneous exodus that started in the aftermath of the quake.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says half a million people are living in 447 improvised camps in the capital. Of 350 settlements visited by the IOM and the Haitian government, only three had access to potable water.
About half had improvised shelter material or tents. The IOM is distributing tents, blankets and plastic sheeting, but warned that more permanent shelter will be needed before the rainy season starts in May. Aid workers speak of fears that hundreds of thousands of displaced persons could spend decades in tent camps, like the Palestinians or Sahrawis.
The EU yesterday raised its estimate of the number of homeless Haitians from 1.5 million to two million. The World Food Programme says it will have to feed up to two million people.
Some 80,000 Haitians killed in the earthquake have already been buried, and earth-movers continue digging mass graves for 10,000 daily. Rescue teams from around the world have pulled 22 more people out of the rubble alive, including three on Wednesday. But rescue teams from Florida, Belgium, Luxembourg and Britain have packed up and gone home.
Other rescue crews from Brazil, the US and Chile continue to work at the collapsed Montana Hotel, where a memo board lists the names of 10 people found dead and 20 still missing inside.
After working gingerly to avoid hurting trapped survivors, the rescue workers have switched to heavy equipment. “As well as being hopeful, you have to be realistic, and after nine days, reality says it is more difficult to find people alive – but it’s not impossible,” said Chilean army major Rodrigo Vasquez.
With 12,000 US troops now in Haiti, President Barack Obama has shown himself sensitive to fears of US domination. He told ABC News he’s being “very careful” to work with the Haitian government and the UN.
“I want to make sure that when America projects its power around the world, it’s not seen only when it’s fighting a war,” Mr Obama said. “It’s got to also be able to help people in desperate need. And ultimately that will be good for us. That will be good for our national security over the long term.”
The Haitian commerce minister told Reuters that banks will open today and over the weekend in the hope of setting the paralysed economy back in motion.
Also yesterday, 106 Haitian children scheduled for adoption by Dutch families arrived in the Netherlands. The process was speeded up because of the dire circumstances in Haiti.