Michelle Obama today made an unannounced visit to earthquake-hit Haiti at the start of her first solo international trip as US first lady.
The 46-year-old wife of President Barack Obama made the stopover in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince en route to Mexico. She arrived with Jill Biden, the wife of US vice president Joe Biden.
"First lady Michelle Obama and Dr Jill Biden are visiting Haiti to underscore to the Haitian people and the Haitian government the enduring US commitment to help Haiti recover and rebuild, especially as we enter the rainy and hurricane seasons," the White House said in a statement.
Ms Obama and Ms Biden flew over the capital in a helicopter before meeting Haitian leaders.
Other leaders, such as French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and a number of Latin American presidents, have visited Haiti since the quake, described by some experts as the deadliest natural disaster in modern history.
International aid workers are striving to care for more than one million homeless Haitian quake survivors who are camped out in makeshift tent and shelter communities sprawled across the capital and in other damaged towns.
Relief agencies have started moving some survivors to a more secure prepared settlement.
At a donors' conference in New York on March 31th, governments, multilateral institutions and non-governmental organizations from around the world pledged nearly $10 billion for Haiti's reconstruction.
Reuters