SIX DAYS after the worst earthquake in two centuries devastated the Haitian capital, killing tens of thousands of people, the surviving population are either taking root in refugee-style camps or fleeing the capital for the countryside.
“We dread two things,” says Nelta Volmar (26), a student of international relations whose university was destroyed. “Food riots and epidemics. I think both will happen.”
Residents of Port-au-Prince are impatient, as well as fearful. “We Need Help” and “People Need Water, Foods” say crudely painted billboards on the main road between Pétionville and Port-au-Prince.
In a five-hour drive around the capital yesterday I saw few signs of help or a return to order: one Haitian government rubbish truck and one water lorry; two vehicles carrying Russian rescue workers; seven white-painted vehicles of the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti.
This in a city of three million, steeped in misery and on the verge of anarchy.
Behind a barrier at their commissariat on the edge of the Champs de Mars officers of the Haitian anti-riot unit known as CIMO stood behind a cordon, guarding four looters who lay on the bed of a lorry. “We don’t have a prison to put them in,” explained Insp Pierre Gueder.
The shooting we heard a few blocks away, in the former shopping area near the ruined cathedral, was a gun battle between police and “bandits”, the inspector said.
A US military helicopter roared overhead, allegedly spotting looters for the Haitian police.
“The marines are landing at the airport,” Insp Gueder said. “According to Obama, there’ll be 10,000 by tomorrow. They’ll help us restore order. The US, France and Canada are the three countries that always help us. They’re true friends.”
Among the thousands of Haitians who now camp on the esplanade outside the ruined presidential palace, patience is growing thin.
“We don’t understand what’s taking so long,” a middle-aged man complained.
All over Port-au-Prince, on the grounds of the prime minister’s office, at Killick naval base, on football fields and in every public park, the homeless are settling in, driving tent poles into the ground and setting up vigilante committees, armed with machetes, to protect them from thieves.
Geralda Desrivières (18) lay under a blue tarpaulin on the Champ de Mars, her leg in a plaster applied by Cuban rescue workers. Several of the wheelchairs that Geralda used to push around the St Vincent centre for the handicapped were lined up beside the makeshift tent. Now Geralda waits with her former charges: 14 women suffering from motor handicaps or blindness.
“Our wounds need tending,” she said. “We hurt. We don’t have any medicine. Thursday a truck came by with food, but because none of us can move we didn’t get any.”
Mistaking me for an aid worker, Léone Joseph, a housewife, asked if I could give her a surgical mask to filter out the odour of urine and faeces that permeates the Champ de Mars. When I explained I was only a journalist, she asked: “Do you have a solution?” But she didn’t really expect an answer. “Foreigners are our only hope,” she murmured.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon toured his staff’s devastated headquarters yesterday and met earthquake survivors desperate for food and shelter.
“I am here with a message of hope that help is on the way,” Ban told a group of men and boys who had gathered in front of the severely damaged National Palace and were shouting that they needed food, water and work.
Ban said he has three priorities in Haiti: saving as many lives as possible; stepping up humanitarian assistance; and ensuring the co-ordination of the huge amount of aid coming into the country.
“We should not waste even a single item, a dollar.”
Ban said the UN is feeding 40,000 people and expects that figure to rise to two million within a month.
The secretary-general also said he was “very touched and grateful” for the outpouring of aid from other countries around the world.
The Haitian government has established 14 distribution points for food and other supplies, and US army helicopters scouted locations for more. Aid groups opened five emergency health centres. Vital gear, such as water-purification units, was arriving from abroad.
On a hillside golf course perhaps 50,000 people were sleeping in a makeshift tent city overlooking the capital, and paratroopers of the US 82nd Airborne Division flew in to set up a base for handing out water and food.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited at the weekend and pledged more US assistance.
Haitian president Réné Préval said 3,500 US troops would help overstretched UN peacekeepers and Haitian police guarantee security in the capital. “We have 2,000 police in Port-au-Prince who are severely affected. And 3,000 bandits escaped from prison . This gives you an idea of how bad the situation is,” Mr Préval told reporters.
President Barack Obama met former presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton in Washington and urged Americans to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti.
Haiti has been rocked by dozens of aftershocks, with more than 40 tremors of magnitude 4.4 or greater hitting the country since last week’s earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey. –(Additional reporting by AP and Reuters)