generalspeaking

Devastation Writ Large...

Haiti on the verge of total collapse. No working government, no reliable police force presence.

When the National Palace in Port-au-Prince collapsed during the Tuesday earthquake, so too did the country's government; utterly disabled. Without a military of its own, UN peacekeeping forces are on duty, and they have suffered personnel deaths themselves. The U.S. now plans to help restore government authority in Haiti. Sadly it was done before, with Aristide, and he was a corrupt disaster.

Earthquake survivors, while still traumatized are growing increasingly bereft of hope. Anger is mounting at the seeming lack of timely response from the international community. By a bereft population finding it difficult to comprehend that the earthquake fall-out included their port and airport facilities, along with heavy equipment required to unload emergency supplies, and warehousing to store them for orderly distribution purposes.

Chaos and growing lawlessness is so profound that a United Nations Warehouse was looted, with 15,000 tonnes of food stolen. Hardly surprising at a time of such desperate need, but neither is it reassuring, since no one can authoritatively claim that those in actual need received the stolen provisions. Looters are fighting over food supplies and hi-jacking vehicles.

Hospitals, most of them destroyed or in partial collapse, cannot manage the numbers of dead, let alone the injured and dying. In the absence of government action, Haitians have attempted themselves to recover corpses, piling them into pickup trucks or leaving them piled on sidewalks, where the decomposing bodies, if left untreated and unburied present an urgent threat to health.

People with wounds - and there are countless such, with open wounds untreated, and open to infection - are particularly susceptible to the potential for disease in the tropical heat. Survivors living on the street are not observing any kind of hygiene or practising normal disposal of human waste. Relief workers are attempting to establish latrine systems.

Contamination due to exposure from rotting cadavers and from human waste littered everywhere leaves open the spread of cholera and other dread diseases. There are an estimated 3.5-million survivors requiring aid of all kinds. The largest hospital currently in use in Haiti is a field unit sent by Israel, a mobile facility with 40 doctors, 20 paramedics and 24 nurses.

UNICEF is attempting to set up safe shelters for lost children. "This is something we do in all such emergencies, to reunite kids with family members. It's an important measure because we want to avoid predators coming along and taking kids for trafficking, which is sometimes a danger." CARE international has tens of thousands of meals ready for distribution, but faces a challenge in distribution.

UNICEF Canada is co-ordinating the strategies among aid agencies of delivering water to Haitian survivors, inclusive of the distribution of water containers and purification tablets. At night neighbourhood pastors arrive at various survivor camps to lead people in prayers and song. The city is filled with the sounds of song and prayer throughout the night.

"Anytime the Earth moves, it's time to pray. You are going to hear a lot of prayers in Port-au-Prince when you're here. We need it."

Labels: Human Relations, Troublespots, World Crises

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 16, 2010