23987: (news) Slavin: 3 months after floods, Haiti still struggling to recover (Cox 122604) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

from: jps390@aol.com

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5153154.html

December 26, 2004 at 7:39 AM

3 months after floods, Haiti still struggling to recover

Mike Williams

Cox News Service

Published December 26, 2004

GONAIVES, HAITI -- Suzette Pierre has little left to remember September's terrible floods by, except the crooked tree where she scrambled to safety with her two children to escape the raging waters.

"My mother and my grandmother wouldn't leave our house," said Pierre, 28, pointing to a mud-stained shack about 100 feet from the tree that saved at least part of her family. "The water just took them, and we have never seen them again."


Nearly three months after the Sept. 18 deluge from Tropical Storm Jeanne killed 2,000 people and left 1,000 missing, thousands of survivors are still struggling to recover, their houses and farms in utter ruin from the raging torrent.


International aid groups have scrambled to feed and house the victims, with nearly half of Gonaives' 250,000 residents now depending on food provided by the United Nations' World Food Program, Atlanta-based CARE and other groups.


But delivery of the desperately needed aid has been hampered by the lack of security and inadequate government presence, problems spawned by the February overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.


The armed gangs that fomented the uprising against Aristide and turned Gonaives into a rebel city in February have since attacked food shipments, hoarding the supplies to bolster their own power and finances. Some attempts to distribute the aid have turned into melees of starving people fighting for handouts, quelled only by U.N. peacekeepers and a few local police armed with tear gas.


"Fortunately, in the last few weeks the security situation has gotten better," said James Jean, a CARE official who manages food aid in Gonaives. "But we did have three trucks of food that were attacked by street gangs on Dec. 3, and we cannot distribute the food without protection from the U.N."


The government of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has only a finger-hold of control in Gonaives, with a squad of a few dozen police pitted against the gangs. U.N. officials have said they will soon begin disarming the gangs, although few believe the effort will prove successful.


Still, in a country where nearly 80 percent of the population of 8 million somehow survives on less than $1 a day, signs of recovery are visible.


Schools in Gonaives have been reopened, vendors crowd a few downtown streets and baskets of citrus, potatoes and other food have appeared in the dust-choked market.


Residents armed with shovels and wheelbarrows provided by CARE and other groups have cleared away much of the debris and muck that rose to the rooftops in many sections of the city during the flood, and main roads are now clogged with traffic.


Widespread outbreaks of cholera and other diseases have been averted, even though the city's main hospital was destroyed by the floods. The sick and injured are now cared for at a mobile field hospital set up by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Hundreds of people seek treatment there each day, most for gastrointestinal ailments linked to polluted water.


Aid groups have set up huge water bladders on wooden stands around the city to provide water for drinking and cooking, urging residents to avoid their wells or the city's water system.


But the progress comes in fits and starts.


In addition to the attacks on convoys, the recovery effort was hampered in early December by a strike by customs agents on the docks in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where most of the aid arrives by ship. But the customs agents agreed to return to work on Dec. 10, and aid officials hope a corner has been turned on the worst of the disaster.


"We're still quite concerned about security, but at least people have been receiving food," said Guy Gavreau, anofficial with the World Food Program in Haiti. "There is still too much to do. Even if we bring all the food in the world to Gonaives, it won't solve the problems there."


Others worry that new floods could spark another major disaster. The low-lying city is surrounded by hills stripped bare of trees cut by charcoal-makers, and runoff from even routine rains in the summer often spark small floods.


And while the city itself has made progress in its cleanup, outlying villages are still in bad shape.

© Copyright 2004 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.


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J.P. Slavin
New York
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