23325: (Chamberlain) UN to launch $30 mln drive for Haiti flood victims (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     GONAIVES, Haiti, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The United Nations will launch a
global appeal for $30 million in emergency aid to help Haiti recover from
floods that killed hundreds of people, the executive director of UNICEF
said on Wednesday on a visit to the impoverished Caribbean nation.
     "The situation is quite devastating here," said Carol Bellamy, who
toured the port city of Gonaives, hard hit by floods triggered by Tropical
Storm Jeanne nearly two weeks ago.
     Up to 2,400 people have died in the floods, according to local
officials. Aid workers are still trying to feed unruly crowds of hungry
people.
     Bellamy donned black, knee-high boots to walk through the mud-choked
streets of Gonaives. She toured schools converted to shelters for children
who lost their families in the floods and health clinics where foreign
doctors are struggling to prevent outbreaks of disease.
     "The hospitals can't function. They are full of mud," Bellamy said.
"The schools are being used for shelters. There is food distribution, but
not sufficient yet."
     She said the United Nations would make its appeal on Friday for $30
million, the amount Haitian officials said was urgently needed to provide
food and water and other relief for the next three months.
     U.N. peacekeeping troops have set up a makeshift medical center in a
school and doctors have treated 2,000 people in 10 days, many for illnesses
from drinking unclean water. Twenty-five women have given birth there this
week.
     Aid workers handed out food at four distribution centers, where armed
U.N. peacekeepers tried to prevent gangs from stealing the food. Young men
grabbed bags of rice from the aid convoys, and stole it from the arms of
women leaving the center.
     Starting Thursday, relief workers planned to fan out into
neighborhoods to distribute supplies, to discourage large unruly crowds
from gathering at the aid centers, said Carl Murat Cantave, a government
official in Gonaives.
     Agriculture Minister Philippe Mathiew estimated damages in the
Gonaives area at $21 million.
     Officials said international donors have promised $84 million,
including $10 million the Inter-American Development Bank will disburse
from an existing loan as soon as Haiti's government identifies what it
wants to spend the money on.
     The United States and Canada have pledged $2 million each, Venezuela
$1 and the European Union $1.5 million.
     "I have visited other places that had disasters," Bellamy said. "I
can't say this is the worst I've ever seen. But this is one of the worst
I've seen."