22178: (Chamberlain) Helicopters shuttle food to stricken Haitian towns (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 29 (Reuters) - Foreign military helicopters
shuttled tons of food and drinking water to flood-devastated Haitian towns
on Saturday, the only lifeline for thousands of homeless people cut off
from the world.
     With roads to the stricken areas impassable in many places,
helicopters have been the only way to reach survivors of flooding that
killed an estimated 2,000 people on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola
shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
     As many as 1,000 of the dead were in the southeastern Haitian town of
Mapou that was engulfed by the floods, officials say. The town of several
thousand people is only about 25 miles (40 km) southeast of the capital,
but roads were damaged by the torrents of mud and water that swept down
hillsides five days ago.
     "The helicopters are a very short-term fix for addressing immediate
needs," said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, spokesman for the U.S. military in Haiti,
adding that road repairs would have to become a priority as the flooded
areas start to recover.
     A small boat to enable aid workers to get around Mapou, much of it
still submerged, was being sent on one of the 15 to 20 helicopter flights
planned for Saturday, Lapan said.
     A U.S.-led multinational force, sent to the impoverished country three
months ago to help restore order after former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide was ousted by a bloody revolt, has turned to relief work after the
worst natural disaster to hit Haiti in a decade.
     Tons of food and supplies were delivered to Mapou in previous days and
most of Saturday's flights focused on delivering relief supplies to other
hard-hit towns -- Fond Verettes, where more than 160 people died, and
another small town in the southeast, Thiotte.
     In Fond Verettes alone, some 8,500 people needed food, most of them
made homeless by the disaster, said Inigo Alvarez, a spokesman in Haiti for
the World Food Programme.
     He added that aid workers were also looking for more pockets of
disaster. "We are worried there are small isolated areas" that have not
been reached," Alvarez said.
     The death toll in Haiti stood at about 1,800, while about 350 people
were killed in the Dominican Republic, most in the border town of Jimani.
Aid workers and officials have said the toll could rise as more bodies are
found in the mud and debris.
     The flooding ravaged the crops and livestock of poor farmers who
scratch out a living and piled misery onto already desperate conditions in
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas. Average per capita annual
income for Haiti's 8 million people is about $300.
     The World Food Programme was already running a program to feed some
140,000 people after months of civil unrest in Haiti.
    "The WFP is not new to this country ... it is suffering a long, deep
crisis," Alvarez said.
     The foreign military force, numbering about 3,500 troops, is due to
start handing over to U.N.-led troops on June 1, but Lapan said this would
not mean that relief flights would suddenly come to a halt.
     "The U.N. resolution (on the military force) provides for a 30-day
transition and there will be no stopping of efforts next week," he said.