Archive for January, 2010

More aid arrives in Haiti; mass migration to U.S. not materializing

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti _ Doctors, troops, food, water, fuel, medicine and other humanitarian supplies continued to flow into Haiti Monday, reaching more earthquake survivors, and perhaps dissuading migrants from taking to the Florida Straits and heading to the United States.
Navy Rear Adm. Michael Rogers, director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a telephone conference call from the island that violence was not impeding search and rescue, or humanitarian efforts to distribute food, water and medical supplies.

“We have seen nothing to suggest to us widespread disorder,” Rogers said.

He added that there were “isolated events” of tumulting crowds at distribution points and some looting, but he emphasized that, “There’s nothing in the security environment right now that is significantly inhibiting our ability.”

But conflicting reports from the ground indicated that survivors are growing more desperate for food and supplies, and competing aggressively for scarce resources.

Leaders of the French humanitarian group, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), reported treating more victims of violence and witnessing unrest at the airport during distributions of relief aid.

“Yesterday we received people with gunshot and knife wounds,” said Loris de Filippi, operational coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.

Filippi said gunshots were fired Monday morning at the airport in Port-au-Prince to break up a mob of people scrambling to receive of aid.

“People were really struggling to get a little bit of food,” he said.

Security in Port-au-Prince is led by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, a 9,000-member force of international military and police.

About 1,700 U.S. troops, primarily from the 82nd Airborne Division, are on the ground in Haiti. Another 2,200 Marines were scheduled to arrive offshore Monday, arrayed across three ships, and running operations and relief supplies back and forth.

“All told, by midweek, there will be probably 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. military on the ground” in Haiti, said U.S. Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for U.S. military operations in Haiti. An equal number of U.S. forces will remain aboard vessels anchored offshore.

“Our mission is humanitarian,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Cornell Wilson, who is in charge of all Marines operations in Haiti.

Wilson declined to outline the Marines’ return-fire or so-called “rules of engagement” orders in light of bursts of gunfire now being heard around Port-au-Prince.

“We always retain the right to self defense,” he added.

Despite the dire lack of food, water and medicine for survivors of the earthquake, mass migrations of Haitians to the United States _ a typical occurrence following disasters on the island in recent history _ have not materialized, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security reported.

Both agencies reported zero movement of Haitian migrants on Monday morning.

Perhaps aid reaching the country, and the heavy presence of U.S. Coast Guard and Navy ships, served as a deterrent, said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Christopher O’Neil.

“So long as there is a promise of help, I think that’s why you don’t see people head to the beaches,” he said, reiterating the U.S. message: “Stay home and stay safe.”

Though the Obama administration last week approved Temporary Protected Status for tens of thousands of Haitian nationals in the United States, the legal status does not apply to Haitians trying to enter the country after Jan. 12.

For Americans evacuating Haiti, the process was fraught with difficulty.

Throngs gathered at the U.S. Embassy in an effort to arrange a flight out of the country, though it was not clear if all were American citizens. And a group of 30 people, including Americans, that tried to evacuate through the airfield at Port-au-Prince showed signs of dehydration and heat stroke, said Lt. Cmddr. Ron Flanders, a spokesman for Naval Force South in Jacksonville, Fla.

“There is one fatality,” he said, “and the remaining citizens are undergoing triage for treatment.”

Military spokesmen did not know the cause of death or the man’s nationality, and U.S. State Department officials did not elaborate. The group was treated at the airfield, which has been overwhelmed by incoming humanitarian flights, outgoing evacuations, and occasional unrest during distribution of relief aid.

While international rescue and relief efforts encountered obstacles, there were also stories of success.

The U.S. Agency for International Development and Task Force Haiti reported that on Sunday, rescue teams from Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and the City of Miami set a new record for the number of survivors pulled from crumbled buildings: 10.

In all, search and rescue missions _ carried out by 1,700 personnel from a variety of countries _ had saved 71 survivors from collapsed buildings and other damaged structures, said Tim Callaghan, a senior adviser with USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

The United Nations, which estimates that 1 million people were made homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck Jan. 12, reported setting up seven field hospitals, with three of them fully operational.

And the U.N.’s World Food Program reported delivering 200 metric tons of food that reached 95,000 people.

Additionally, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was scheduled to begin tele-medicine consultations Monday, using University of Miami doctors, surgeons and specialists at Jackson Ryder Trauma Center to access patients on the ground in Haiti and instruct medical personnel how to treat the most critical and complicated injuries.

The U.S. Army tapped the University of Miami to staff a 300-bed hospital in Haiti that will include two live operating rooms, and airplanes have been leaving daily from Opa-Locka Airport in Miami and Fort Lauderdale Airport filled with university doctors, support staff and medical supplies.

The massive rescue and relief effort was slow to start, as international government leaders, humanitarian groups and Haitian government struggled to coordinate their efforts, said Capt. Andrew Stevermer, commander of incident response coordination for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Though the Haitian government was severely disabled in the earthquake _ the presidential palace and ministry buildings collapsed, and many government ministers and employees remain missing _ President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive continue to meet daily with international relief agencies and government representatives to set priorities.

The Haitian government continued to choose the priorities for search and rescue efforts, Kirby added.

“They will continue the search through today and tomorrow,” Callaghan said Monday.

Some of the loudest criticism of the rescue effort was directed at the U.S. military, which is controlling the airfield in Port-au-Prince.

Benoit Leduc, operations manager for Doctors Without Borders in Haiti, said that five of the organization’s flights were diverted away from the airfield, causing delays in the delivery of life-saving supplies.

“We are frustrated as doctors who have patients … without the proper drugs or the equipment to perform operations,” Leduc said during a telephone press conference from Haiti.

Kirby said air traffic controllers have turned away as many military flights as humanitarian ones, and that the Haitian government sets the priority for use of the airfield.

But the greatest challenge with at the airfield, Kirby said, is the sheer volume of flights.

“There are literally hundreds of flights a day trying to get in there,” Kirby said. “There’s one tarmac, one runway, one ramp for all the aircraft.”

With the city’s main port unable to receive cargo ships because of quake damage, the airfield has become the principal entry point. Other humanitarian cargo and supplies have been trucked into Haiti through the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Government officials from Haiti and the Dominican Republic were also discussing ways to open an airport base in Barahona to ease aid distribution.

Among those defending the pace of aid distribution was former president and now U.N. special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton, who visited Port-au-Prince on Monday and was spotted helping unload cargo at the airfield.

“I’ll be surprised and disappointed if 48 hours from now we’re not feeding and bringing fresh water to dramatically larger amounts of people,” Clinton told Agence France-Press.

Though Kirby estimated that most flights landing at the airfield had two hours in which to land, unload their cargo, and then depart, volunteers on the ground said they were frustrated by the snail’s pace.

Howard Kessler, a Wakulla, Fla., county commissioner and orthopedic surgeon, spent much of Monday _ as he had on Sunday when he had arrived _ waiting for his church mission group’s medical supplies to arrive.

“It’s immensely frustrating not being able to do something when you know there’s need out there,” said Kessler, adding that he had offered the team’s services at the mammoth U.N. complex where medical teams are assembled.

“I’d go with anyone,” he said, “as long as I could help people.”

Amid a rising death toll and a cataclysmic humanitarian crisis, small miracles unfolded _ even as the window narrowed for survivors.

Five people were rescued Monday morning from the wreckage of the Caribbean Market and the downtown business district.

A Florida rescue team pulled a man and a girl from the market, and declared them to be in “remarkably good shape.”

The two had been trapped in the supermarket aisle that stocked peanut butter and jelly, said Frank Mainade, team leader for the Alpha Division of the South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team.

After being pulled from the rubble, the first thing the man said was, “I ate a lot of peanut butter,” Mainade said.

Team member Joseph Fernandez said Monday morning’s rescue _ the second reported mission where survivors were found after subsisting on supermarket staples _ has given rescue workers hope at the site.

“Food has changed the entire dynamic here,” Fernandez said. “We’re pulling out not just viable, but healthy, if dusty people.

“We can’t let this site go,” he said.

As rescue teams and residents continue their work, world leaders increased their pledges of help, and made personal visits.

The flow of aid comes as the confirmed death toll in Haiti’s calamitous earthquake reached 70,000 on Sunday.

As the world watched images of Haiti’s ghastly crisis, European nations pledged tens of millions more funds Monday for emergency aid to Haiti, the Associated Press reported. Foreign aid will also include reconstruction help for one of the poorest countries in the world.

European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars, with 330 million euros ($474 million) in emergency and long-term aid coming from the European Union alone and 92 million euros ($132 million) promised individually by member states.

Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said Britain would triple its commitment to 20 million pounds ($32.7 million) to deal with “an almost unprecedented level of devastation,” the AP reported.

France on Monday committed 10 million euros ($14.4 million) to the United Nations for aid to Haiti and Italy said it was “willing” would forgive Haiti’s 40 million euro ($55.7 million) debt on top of its aid pledges.

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(Staff writer Frances Robles contributed to this report from Haiti, as did Daniels and Clark. Staff writer Daniel Chang reported from Miami, as did Rosenberg.)