More than three weeks after the 7.0-magnitude quake, Bellerive said his tiny Caribbean nation had been ravaged by "a disaster on a planetary scale" and detailed the tragic toll suffered by his people.

"There are more than 200,000 people who have been clearly identified as people who are dead," he told AFP, adding another 300,000 injured had been treated, 250,000 homes had been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost.

At least 4,000 amputations have also been carried out due to horrific crush injuries -- a shocking figure which is likely to strain the impoverished nation's already meager resources for years to come.

Despite a massive aid operation, a lack of coordination and the extent of the damage has hampered the distribution of food and water leading to mounting tensions among a million people left homeless.

"The Haitian government has done nothing for us, it has not given us any work. It has not given us the food we need," said Sandrac Baptiste bitterly, as she left her makeshift tent to join angry demonstrations Wednesday.

In separate protests after a tense night when shots were fired in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince, some 300 people gathered outside the mayor's office in the once upscale Petionville neighborhood.

"If the police fire on us, we are going to set things ablaze," one of the protesters shouted, raising a cement block above his head.

Another 200 protesters marched toward the US embassy, crying out for food and aid, and about 50 protestors also gathered late Tuesday outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed.

"Down with Preval," demonstrators shouted at the president who has only spoken to the people a few times since the disaster struck.

"There are no tents! There is no food!" protested Bousiquot Widmack, while demonstrators who said they were government workers complained their homes had collapsed, they had not been paid, and they had nothing to eat.

Amid the mounting frustration, UN chief Ban Ki-moon asked former US president Bill Clinton to "assume a leadership role" in coordinating the international aid, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing.

"The aim... is to provide strategic guidance to the United Nations involvement at an international level," Nesirky said.

Clinton added: "The trick is to get the Haitian people back where they can stop living from day-to-day and start living from week-to-week or month-to-month and then start the long-term efforts.

"They, the leaders there, want to build a functioning, modern state for the first time, and I will do what I can to faithfully represent and work with all the agencies of the UN and help them get it done," he added.

Countries, companies and individuals have promised more than 230 million dollars to the World Food Programme for its Haiti emergency operations, the UN agency said.

Marjorie Michel, the Haitian minister in charge of women's affairs, said neighborhood committees were reporting a rise in the number of rapes in the tent camps, although women were reluctant to make a formal complaint.

She said teams were being sent into the camps to try to deal with the situation, and promised segregated bathroom facilities would be installed in new camps.

A Haitian judge was meanwhile also due to question a group of Americans accused of trying to smuggle children out of the quake-stricken nation.

Ten US Christians from the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge have been detained in Haiti since the weekend after they tried to smuggle some 33 children out of the country to neighboring Dominican Republic.

earlier related report
UN asks Bill Clinton to oversee Haiti aid coordination
United Nations (AFP) Feb 3, 2010 - UN chief Ban Ki-moon has asked former US president Bill Clinton to "assume a leadership role" in coordinating international aid to quake-hit Haiti, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Martin Nesirky told a press briefing that Ban met with Clinton, a UN special envoy for Haiti, early Wednesday and asked him "to assume a leadership role in coordinating international aid efforts from emergency response to the reconstruction of Haiti."

"The aim... is to provide strategic guidance to the United Nations involvement at an international level" in Haiti, which was devastated by a 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12.

Nesirky said the former US president would work very closely with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) head Helen Clark and Edmond Mulet, the acting head of the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and UN agencies.

"The idea is to ensure that there is coherence at the policy level, coherence internationally," the spokesman said, with Clinton expected to mobilize and coordinate aid from the corporate world, governments, and non-governmental organizations in the areas of reconstruction, recovery and delivery of shelters ahead of the hurricane season.

"The trick is to get the Haitian people back where they can stop living from day-to-day and start living from week-to-week or month-to-month and then start the long-term efforts," Clinton said.

"They, the leaders there, want to build a functioning, modern state for the first time, and I will do what I can to faithfully represent and work with all the agencies of the UN and help them get it done," he added.

Last week the former US president urged global corporate bosses at the World Economic Forum in Davos to use the Haiti catastrophe which killed around 170,000 people as an opportunity to lift the devastated Caribbean nation out of generations of poverty.

And last month, US President Barack Obama asked Clinton and another former US president, George W. Bush, to oversee private fund-raising in the United States for Haiti's reconstruction.

A Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund was set up to collect money for immediate relief aid -- food, water, shelter and first-aid supplies -- as well as long-term support to quake survivors.

With around one million left homeless by the temblor, hundreds of thousands have fled the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, for promised tent camps in the countryside that the government is still setting up.

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