Haitian police shoot scavengers indiscriminately: AFP

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Huts, committees and jobs in Haiti refugee camp
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Jan 25, 2010 - At the Champ de Mars refugee camp in central Port-au-Prince, earthquake survivors are slowly piecing their lives back together. But the one thing they can't organize is enough food. People left homeless by the January 12 disaster, which also killed at least 150,000, have built shacks, launched neighborhood committees and even found work in this sprawling makeshift settlement. Whatever looters could drag from the smoking wreckage of the earthquake -- whether sheets, wood, iron bars, blocks of stone, mattresses or chairs -- has been recycled to make these frail huts. Finding anything to eat or drink is an even more daunting task, as a huge US- and UN-led international aid effort still struggles to get supplies to around one million people left homeless by the disaster.

"Our aim is to clean these places, get tents and find food and water," said Michel Emile, 28, a computer technician. "But we don't yet understand where the food and water distribution points are located." A lucky few in the camp withdrew money from the bank or borrowed from family members. Others shared -- eating every other day. Throughout the day, survivors go looking for something, anything to fill their stomachs and those of their loved ones. "We don't find something every day," said Djilly Pierre, a 26-year-old accountant. Still, the refugees do what they can. They have set up areas for eating, washing and sleeping, as well as outside basins where people wash naked or half-clothed with no privacy or dignity.

Vendors of clothes, underwear, alcohol and cosmetics have set up shop in the alleys around the camp. Small stalls sell rice, fried goods and sweets, as well as ketchup, pasta, haircare products and lipstick. "I'm not selling a lot though," said Fenelon Louis, 36. There is work for those with an entrepreneurial flair. Women cook meat with an enticing odor, a man loans out his generator for charging mobile phones. A wooden sign reads: "We sell manicures," while another offers haircuts. Committees are starting up too, like the "Committee for the Haiti of Tomorrow" in a tent village set up by French soldiers.

"They are trying to coordinate with the mayor to distribute other tents. We are asking them to clear the trash and to liaise with the police," a French soldier explained. Further off, young people try to help. They carry out night patrols to provide some form of security and collect the garbage. But in the camp, some traditional roles have been reversed, with men starting to do the washing and cooking. Some have gone back to their jobs in town but most are idle, the catastrophe depriving them of their role as head and provider of the family. "It's hard, I'm not used to doing nothing. I've got a job, it's annoying," said Pierre Claudel, a 24-year-old potter, as other young men hung around in groups in the shade or ambled around.

"I've made friends, we talk about the situation, about everything and nothing. Before all this I liked to chat up girls, but here I'm not in the mood." It is mainly the women who busy themselves, looking after the stove, tidying up, taking care of the children. "We get up, we cook, we wash the dishes and clean the clothes. We go to church, we read the Bible. Basically, we distract ourselves and we wait," said student Saradjine Saint-Jean, 21. Between the shelters and laughing children playing hide-and-seek, little girls skipped a rope. The boys made toy cars with bottles and bottlecaps for wheels. And high above the chaos, small kites made of plastic bags fluttered in the breeze.

by Staff Writers
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Jan 25, 2010
Haitian police on Monday shot indiscriminately at scavengers and looters in Port-au-Prince, hitting two in the head as post-quake security deteriorated, an AFP photographer reported.

A group of police, pushed to keep control among a desperate population after the January 12 tremor which killed or injured many of their number and destroyed the city prison, opened fire on a warehouse from a building opposite.

An AFP photographer inside the scavengers' building said two men were hit in the head, one of whom received medical attention. Two others were lying prone on the floor, one lifeless. The other was treated for a serious head wound.

A Haitian man in the street outside said he saw police pistol whip a man.

"This guy was trying to go inside (the warehouse), the cops took a gun straight to the back of the head. I don't know why they do that. It's not fair because everyone in Haiti is hungry," the man, who declined to give his name, said.

Looters and scavengers have moved into the downtown commercial district, taking what they can from the ruins as bulldozers demolished damaged shops and warehouses.

The Haitian government has said the death toll from the January 12 quake, which shattered what little infrastructure existed in the capital and left a million people homeless, is expected to be around 150,000.

EU to send police to Haiti, despite British objections
Brussels (AFP) Jan 25, 2010 - European nations agreed on Monday to send a mission of more than 300 police officers to help ease aid coordination and distribution in quake-hit Haiti.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed on a total contribution of "at least 300 officers" to help the UN's stabilisation mission in Haiti, EU foreign policy supremo Catherine Ashton told reporters.

France's European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche, whose country is one of the biggest contributors with 140 officers, said the MINUSTAH mission could reach 350 people on the ground.

Italy will offer around 100 officers, following a United Nations call to boost the figures.

On Sunday, the mission head Edmond Mulet said there was an enormous need for personnel, fuel and vehicles.

Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, and The Netherlands will also contribute, possibly alongside Portuguese and Romanian police, meaning Europe will at least double the UN's request for 150 officers.

"Together we will represent the EU in this role of guaranteeing the security and above all the arrival of the emergency aid which the Haitians' need," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Britain has been cool on the plan, insisting that the United States -- with some 20,000 troops in the area -- had more than enough personnel to provide for security needs.

"I'm not sure that that is necessarily the right way to go," Britain's minister for Europe Chris Bryant told reporters as he arrived for the talks.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband underlined: "The security presence that has been established has been vital and I think actually the United States has done well on that."

The EU is the biggest humanitarian aid donor in the world and has already earmarked more than 420 million euros (600 million dollars) in emergency and reconstruction aid for Haiti -- where at least 150,000 people were thought killed in the January 12 quake.

However the EU's efforts have little visibility on the ground.

The United States, some 300 kilometres (210 miles) from Haiti and with troops in the region, has been able to mobilise vast quantities of aid and resources, and has led supply and search and rescue work in tandem with the UN.

The EU's police mission is dwarfed by comparison but Miliband insisted: "We back up the American and UN efforts because this is a UN enterprise."

Germany will not take part due to restrictions under its constitution.

The EU has been struggling to find 200 gendarmes to fill out its police mission in Afghanistan, where experts needed to build a national security force capable of protecting its own people are in desperately short supply.

The EU foreign ministers also agreed to create a "coordination cell" in Brussels, to avoid doubling up individual efforts by member states.

The moves come after Ashton was accused of not taking a high-profile role in the aid efforts, failing for instance to visit Haiti since the devastating quake.

"What was certainly missing was (EU) visibility right away, a flag right away," said Lellouche, adding that the creation of a European emergency aid force would help.

That idea has been rolling around EU corridors for several years without any result.

Ashton defended herself by saying she had only been in her job for six weeks.

She promised: "We will look at the lessons learned and come forward with proposals," in order to get aid out quicker in the case of future catastrophes.

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DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Refugees from 'nightmare' swamp Haitian town
Saint Marc, Haiti (AFP) Jan 25, 2010
The Haitian town of Saint Marc is sinking beneath a tide of humanity, with 10,000 refugees lodging with friends, strangers or in churches after fleeing the nightmare of the quake-hit capital. Buses incessantly pass through the town some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Port-au-Prince, loaded with earthquake victims hoping to find food and shelter from the aftershocks of the January 12 disas ... read more

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