23294: (Chamberlain) Haiti flood deaths climb; food supplies tight (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
devastating floods hit northern Haiti the death count rose sharply as
reports came in from remote areas on Monday and aid workers struggled to
feed thousands of desperate people.
     The estimated toll from the floods triggered by Tropical Storm Jeanne
climbed to about 2,400 after a parish priest reported "a total disaster" in
small towns in Poteau, a region outside Gonaives.
     In Gonaives, young men grabbed food from an aid convoy and others
robbed women for bags of rice. Aid workers, backed by armed U.N.
peacekeeping forces, increased the number of distribution points for
emergency supplies to four but still faced tense crowds of destitute people
clamoring for help.
     Angry men complained about 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 last week. Government estimates had put the death
toll at 1,650, with about 800 missing.
     But Toussaint Chery, who as parish priest is Poteau's top authority,
said about 1,000 people had died in 18 rural communities in his region. At
least 750 of those deaths had not been previously reported, taking the
nationwide toll from Jeanne to about 2,400.
     "I personally went to several of those communities. It's a total
disaster," Chery said. "There are places that have been completely washed
out."
     Carl Murat Cantave, a government official in Gonaives, also said the
official toll would rise. "Given the number of missing, when we declare the
final death toll in the coming days, it will be at least 2,337 just for the
Gonaives region," he said.
     Relief agencies were working to set up more food distribution centers
as soon as they could establish secure sites, 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.
     At least four women said they were robbed after waiting for hours for
food. Martha Casseus, 16, wept as she described how two men took a bag of
rice and two jugs of cooking oil.
     "I waited all that time and now I am going home empty-handed. I don't
know what I am going to eat," she said. "My mother is sick. She has not
eaten for days. What am I going to tell my mother?"
     Outside Gonaives, a group of young men attacked a convoy of trucks
taking supplies to Poteau, swarming onto a food truck guarded by U.N.
troops. They fled with jugs of oil and bags of rice when the convoy stopped
and troops moved in.