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DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Armed men tried to hijack Haiti food convoy: UN

Haiti polls postponed, no date set: electoral body
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Feb 2, 2010 - Haiti's legislative elections have been postponed to an unspecified date as the crippled government struggles to recover from a devastating earthquake, the electoral council said Tuesday. "The electoral council has decided to postpone the legislative elections of February 28 and March 3, 2010, to a later unspecified date," the council said. Officials said six employees, one legislative candidate and a visitor were killed when the electoral council's building collapsed during the 7.0-magnitude January 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 170,000 Haitians. The polls are to decide the fate of all 99 seats in the House and one third -- 11 -- of the seats in the senate. More than 900 candidates were nominated for the election. The earthquake, which leveled the capital Port-au-Prince -- leaving around one million people homeless -- destroyed thousands of buildings along with dozens of key government centers, including the presidential palace. The council did not indicate whether any decision had been taken on the presidential elections set for December this year. But opposition movements are brewing with the national government -- President Rene Preval and his top minister -- working out of the judicial police headquarters adjacent to the international airport.
by Staff Writers
 Geneva (AFP) Feb 2, 2010
 Armed men attempted to hijack a UN food convoy at a road near Haiti's Jeremie airport, the UN said Tuesday, assessing that the situation in the quake-hit country is "stable but potentially volatile."

"An incident was reported at the the Jeremie airport of an armed group attacking a food convoy; warning shots were fired," said the UN Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a report on the situation in Haiti.

"The overall security situation across the country remains stable but potentially volatile," it said.

Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of OCHA in Geneva, told AFP that the armed group had made a road blockade, but the UN mission had "fired a few warning shots, sending them fleeing" in the incident on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in the city of Jacmel, to the south of the capital Port-au-Prince, 33 prisoners who had escaped from a prison during the earthquake which struck on January 12, were caught Sunday, added OCHA.

Some 6,000 detainees have fled Haitian prisons as they were partially destroyed and left without surveillance since the devastating earthquake on January 12 which left 170,000 people dead.

The security situation is one of the main concerns of international relief teams and residents of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, which had been hit by looting following the disaster.

Aid convoys are usually escorted and distributions monitored by UN mission escorts, which are in some occasions also assisted by the United States, which had deployed 22,000 soldiers to Haiti.


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