Evidence of monstrous neglect of the Haitian people is mounting following the catastrophic earthquake a few days ago. As life-saving medical supplies, food, water purification chemicals and vehicles pile up at the airport in Port au Prince, and as news networks report a massive international effort to deliver emergency aid, the people in the shattered city are wondering when they will see help.
BBC World Service reports that Haitian officials now fear the death toll could rise to 140,000. Three million people are homeless.
BBC reporter Andy Gallagher told an 8 pm (Pacific Time) broadcast (January 15th) that he had traveled “extensively” in Port au Prince during the day and saw little sign of aid delivery. He said he was shown nothing but courtesy by the Haitians he encountered. Everywhere he went he was taken by residents to see what had happened to their neighbourhood, their homes and their lives. Then they asked, “Where is the help?”
“When the Rescue teams arrive,” Gallagher said, “they will be welcomed with open arms.”
CBC Radio One’s As It Happens broadcast an interview on January 15 with a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. He said he spent the morning touring one of the hardest hit areas of the city (the district was not named), in the hills that rise from the flat plain on which sits historic Port au Prince. “In three hours, I didn’t see a single rescue team.”
The BBC report contrasts starkly with warnings of looting and violence that fill the airwaves of news channels such as CNN and are being voiced by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He was asked by media in Washington why relief supplies were not being delivered by air. He answered, “It seems to me that air drops will simply lead to riots.”
Gates says that “security” concerns are impeding the delivery of aid. But Gallagher responded directly to that in his report, saying, “I’m not experiencing that.” Describing the airport, Gallagher reported, “There are plenty of materials on the ground and plenty of people there. I don’t know what the problem is with delivery.”
Nan Buzard, a spokesperson for the American Red Cross, was interviewed on the same BBC broadcast about the problem with aid delivery. She implied that there were not, in fact, many supplies at the airport to be moved, that many of the planes that have been landing were filled with people, not supplies. When pressed by the BBC host why aid was not being moved into the city, Buzard conceded she was “surprised” that it was not being airlifted in.
The BBC’s is not the only report to contradict exaggerated security concerns. The daily report on the website of Doctors Without Borders one day after the earthquake said, “Some parts of the city are without electricity and people have gathered outside, lighting fires in the street and trying to help and comfort each other. When they saw that I was from MSF they were asking for help, particularly to treat their wounded. There was strong solidarity among people in the streets.” [See the complete report below.]
An e-mailed report received by the Canada Haiti Action Network [1] describes a city largely bereft of international aid.
“Thus far,” it reports, “the rescue teams cluster at the high profile and safer walled sites and were literally afraid to enter the barrios. They gravitated to the sites where they had secure compounds and big buildings.
“Meanwhile, the neighbourhoods where the damage appears to be much wider, and anywhere there were loose crowds, they avoided. In the large sites, and in the nice neighbourhoods, and where the press can be found, there would be teams from every country imaginable. Dogs and extraction units with more arriving, yet with 90% or more of them just sitting around.”
“Meanwhile, in the poor neighbourhoods, awash in rubble, there was not a foreigner in sight.
“News crews are looking for the story of desperate Haitians that are in hysterics. When in reality it is more often the Haitians that are acting calmly while the international community, the elite and politicians have melted down over the issue, and none seem to have the remotest idea what is going on.”
The report says that most of the staff of the U.S. embassy and U.S. AID complex (located a stone’s throw from the oceanfront) have fled and buildings are largely empty, even though the streets in the area are clear.
On January 14, BBC broadcast an interview with Mark Stuart, a director of an orphanage in Jacmel, a city of 50,000 on Haiti’s south coast, 50 km south of Port au Prince. Aerial footage showed catastrophic damage. Stuart appealed for international relief, saying that food and water supplies would soon run out and no aid whatsoever had arrived.
Roger Annis
Haiti: Update
MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES (MSF)
Published 13 January 2010
The first reports are now emerging from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams who were already working on medical projects Haiti. They are treating hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities.
The Martissant health centre in a poor area of Port-au-Prince had to be evacuated after the earthquake because it was damaged and unstable. The patients are now in tents on the grounds of the centre and the medical staff have been dealing with a flow of casualties from the town. They have already treated between 300 and 350 people, mainly for trauma injuries and fractures. Among those being treated are 50 people suffering from burns, some of them severe, frequently caused by domestic gas containers exploding in collapsing buildings. At the Pachot rehabilitation centre another 300 to 400 people have been treated. In one of MSF’s administrative offices in Petionville, another neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, a tent clinic has had at least 200 injured people. More people are getting assistance at what was the Solidarité maternity hospital, which was seriously damaged in the quake.
Senior MSF staff member Stefano Zannini was out for most of the night, trying to assess the needs in the city and looking at the state of the medical facilities. “The situation is chaotic,” he says. “I visited five medical centres, including a major hospital, and most of them were not functioning. Many are damaged and I saw a distressing number of dead bodies. Some parts of the city are without electricity and people have gathered outside, lighting fires in the street and trying to help and comfort each other. When they saw that I was from MSF they were asking for help, particularly to treat their wounded. There was strong solidarity among people in the streets.”
Another MSF coordinator working in Port-au-Prince, Hans van Dillen, confirmed the city was unable to cope with the scale of the disaster. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who are sleeping in the streets because they are homeless. We see open fractures, head injuries. The problem is that we cannot forward people to proper surgery at this stage.” So many of the city’s medical facilities have been damaged that healthcare is severely disrupted at precisely the moment when medical needs are high.
MSF is working hard to get more staff into the country. Around 70 more are expected to arrive in the coming days. MSF is sending out a 100-bed hospital, with an inflatable surgical unit, consisting of two operating theatres and seven hospitalization tents. Nephrologists to deal with the affects of crush injuries will also be part of the team. However, transport links are difficult and it is not yet clear whether supplies and medical staff will have to go in through neighbouring Dominican Republic. MSF is concerned about the safety of some of its own team members. There are 800 staff and not all have yet been accounted for because of the poor communications and general disruption following the disaster.