20097: (Chamberlain) U.N. food agency appeals for $10.8 mln for Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     GENEVA, March 9 (Reuters) - The United Nations' food agency appealed
on Tuesday for $10.8 million to help feed needy Haitians once security
improves enough for aid to be distributed.
     The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was particularly concerned
about the north of the impoverished Caribbean country where food stocks at
schools and health centres, which had once helped feed some 268,000 people
a day, were empty.
     "The WFP is very worried about the fate of the vulnerable population
in the north who have been left without help," spokeswoman Christiane
Berthaume told journalists.
     A U.N. assessment team was due to arrive on Tuesday to begin work on
rebuilding Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled last week to
Africa in the face of an armed revolt and international pressure.
     The team will spend three months laying the groundwork for a broad
U.N. peacekeeping mission that will take over from the U.S.-led
multinational force currently attempting to restore some order.
     In Port au Prince, the Rome-based WFP had managed to distribute 20
tonnes of food to an orphanage and a health centre last Thursday, despite
the continued violence, Berthaume said.
     The agency had around 1,800 tonnes of food stockpiled in a warehouse
in the capital, which was being guarded by French troops, but there was no
word on the fate of a further 3,000 tonnes at the port, where there had
been looting.