22161: Esser: Haitians desperate for aid -'Where is U.S., Canada?' (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com

May 31, 2004


   Haitians desperate for aid
`Where is U.S., Canada?' priest asks


Risk of mud slides grows: Red Cross

OAKLAND ROSS
FEATURE WRITER

JIMANI, Dominican Republic—This rambling Caribbean town is
practically overflowing with international assistance following a
devastating flood last week, while disaster victims across the border
in Haiti are still desperate for aid.

"I am criticizing the absence of the international community from
Haiti," Jimani's parish priest said in an emotional exchange
following a deeply moving outdoor mass celebrated yesterday morning
in Jimani's central plaza.

"Here, we are getting help. So far, no aid has reached Haiti," said
Father Jose Ramon de la Cruz.

The death toll in Jimani, a small city of about 10,000 people in
western Dominican Republic was at least 390 — and probably much
higher — when massive rains a week ago sent a deadly wall of water
racing through large areas of the community.

Two neighbourhoods in Jimani were destroyed when a flash flood of
unprecedented proportions raced through the city and whole families
were swept to their deaths.

De la Cruz said he has been in contact with Joseph Serge Miot, the
Roman Catholic bishop in Port-au-Prince, who has been trying to help
co-ordinate efforts to provide emergency assistance to remote
communities in Haiti that were nearly destroyed by last week's
flooding. But aid has been painfully slow to arrive.

"Where is the United States?" de la Cruz asked. "Where is France?
Where is Canada?"

It is thought the floods killed more than 1,400 in the Dominican
Republic and Haiti, and with hundreds still missing, officials
expected the toll to climb.

Yesterday, Haiti's civil protection agency said 350 bodies were
discovered in the southern town of Bodarie.

Officials said as many as 1,500 more could be missing in just one
area of southern Haiti.

Meanwhile, a Red Cross team warned of mud slides after surveying the
destruction near three villages in Haiti.

Although deeply impoverished itself, the Dominican Republic is a more
developed country than its western neighbour, with a more
sophisticated transportation and communications infrastructure.
International assistance has been quick to arrive in the wake of last
week's disaster.

In fact, many relief organizations were already pulling out of Jimani
yesterday, their work largely or completely done.

Hundreds of people left homeless by the flooding here have found
temporary lodging with family or friends or in an emergency shelter
set up at a primary school. If anything, the quantity of relief
supplies that have poured into Jimani is greater than the town's
immediate needs and have attracted large numbers of people from
neighbouring areas, none of them affected by the disaster but who are
intent on seeing what plunder they can find.

A large municipal warehouse on the outskirts of the town was a scene
of bedlam yesterday, with dozens of people fighting their through a
small mountain of donated clothing that was heaped against an outdoor
wall of the building.

Meanwhile, dozens more people jostled at a set of metal gates, trying
to make their way inside.

Dominican soldiers with automatic rifles manned the entrance and
struggled to hold the people back.

Dagoberto Rodriguez Adames, national senator for the province of
Independencia, which includes Jimani, said that none of the people
gathered outside the warehouse was a flood victim or even a resident
of Jimani, but all had come from other towns to see what goods they
could obtain for free.

He said relief officials have decided to distribute supplies to
legitimate disaster victims but only at night, in hopes of keeping
conflicts from breaking out.

Early yesterday morning, about 200 townspeople gathered in the shade
of the quaint blue bandstand that stands at the centre of the town's
central plaza, where de la Cruz celebrated a mass. A portly,
middle-aged man, the priest repeatedly had to stop speaking, as his
emotions overcame him. Members of the congregation sobbed and some
became hysterical with grief.

"We ask God that he give us courage so that we can go on growing and
that we can make of Jimani a new Jimani," the priest said. "The only
thing we can do is lower our heads and ask God that he sends us his
spirit."

At one point during the mass, a woman had to be carried away as she
gasped and choked on her sobs. Friends and relatives placed her on a
park bench in the shade of a laurel tree, where they comforted her.

Vladimir Novas, the woman's husband, said his wife's name was Yoelis
Perez Carabayo and that she had lost her mother, her step-father, her
grandfather, and two nephews in last week's disaster. Their own home,
he said, was destroyed. Another member of the congregation —
Diosmelin Mendez, 22, who is studying medicine in eastern Cuba — was
away when the disaster struck, a disaster that killed his mother, his
father and both of his sisters, leaving his two brothers injured. He
hurried home as soon as he could.

In the wake of the disaster in Jimani, a host of international
agencies have rushed into the town, providing services that have
rarely been available in this modest trading community. It was
possible here yesterday for almost anyone to obtain a free medical
checkup or a free eye test, or to acquire free food and clothing.

People could also make free telephone calls to anywhere in the world
— provided by a non-governmental organization called Télécom Sans
Frontières.

With files from Reuters, AP
.