23280: (Chamberlain) Aid workers struggle to feed flooded Haitian town (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     GONAIVES, Haiti, Sept 27 (Reuters) - More than a week after floods
devastated this impoverished Haitian city, aid workers were struggling to
bring food and clean water to thousands of residents, some still perched on
roofs.
     Aid workers, backed by armed U.N. peacekeeping forces, increased the
number of distribution points for emergency supplies to four but still
faced tense and hungry crowds of destitute residents desperate for help.
     Angry men complained at a policy of handing out food only to women,
who traditionally care for the feeding of their households, and many women
despaired of getting clean water for drinking and cooking, resorting to
muddy wells.
     "We don't know if the water is good, but we have to use it. If we
don't cook anything my children are going to die," said Jacqueline Orassin,
a 49-year-old with six children.
     Torrential rain from Tropical Storm Jeanne engulfed much of the port
city of 200,000 people. Government estimates put the death toll here and in
the surrounding region at 1,650, with about 800 people still missing.
     Relief agencies were working to set up more distribution centers as
soon as they could establish secure sites that are accessible and dry, said
Rick Perera, a spokesman for relief agency CARE.
     At one distribution center on Monday, several men said the policy of
hand-outs to women was unfair and were determined to get supplies
themselves.
     "Today I am not going home empty handed," said one man, Nixon
Saint-Cyr. "Yesterday I came, they said they were distributing only to
women. If they give it to them again, I'll get it anyhow," he said.
     Some women worried that men might grab what they had been given. "I
heard the men saying they will seize the food if we get some today, but
yesterday I didn't find anything," said Agnies Azor, one woman waiting in
the line.
     U.N. humanitarian agencies and relief agencies working with them, such
as CARE, had handed out more than 175 metric tons of food such as rice and
lentils by Monday, said Anne Poulsen, a spokeswoman for the World Food
Programme.
     Food given out so far would be enough for 70,000 families -- of five
people each -- for a day, she said, adding the pipeline of food aid to the
city was now established. It was hardly surprising if there were tensions
in the distribution lines, she said.
     "You cannot blame the people, whether men, women or children for
getting desperate in such a situation," she said.
     About 140 U.N. peacekeepers, in Haiti to maintain stability after the
ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February, were sent to
Gonaives at the weekend, joining about 700 who were there before.
     There were incidents last week of attacks by gangs in the city, as
well as scuffles among people desperate for food and water. A government
relief convoy was attacked by gunmen on its way into the city on Saturday.
  (Additional reporting by Frances Kerry in Miami)