The WFP said in a statement that the extension of its mission in Haiti through 2010 will more than double the cost of the operation to more than 800 million dollars (570 million euros).

WFP director Josette Sheeran thanked donors for the "generous and fast response" to WFP's appeal after the January 12 quake said to have killed 170,000 people and left one million homeless.

The largest donors were the United States, Canada and Spain, but WFP said it received important rice donations from Thailand and Malawi, a country previously depending on food assistance.

WFP also said it had "unprecedented" donations from the private sector, which amounted to almost 60 million dollars.

earlier related report
Haiti polls delayed amid post-quake chaos
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Feb 2, 2010 - Three weeks after a massive earthquake crippled Haiti, authorities on Tuesday indefinitely postponed upcoming legislative elections amid lingering chaos and rising security concerns.

The move underlined the impotence of the Haitian government in the wake of the 7.0-magnitude January 12 quake that killed an estimated 170,000 people and left many official buildings, including the presidential palace, in ruins.

"The electoral council has decided to postpone the legislative elections of February 28 and March 3, 2010, to a later unspecified date," the authorities announced on Tuesday, giving no further details.

The polls in the Caribbean nation had been set to decide the fate of all 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and one third of those in the Senate.

As the political insecurity grew, fears of violence also rose Tuesday with the United Nations revealing that armed men had attempted to hijack a food convoy on a road near Jeremie airport at the weekend.

The UN Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva said "warning shots were fired" during Saturday's incident and assessed the situation in Haiti as "stable but potentially volatile."

Security is one of the main concerns of international relief teams and desperate residents of the capital Port-au-Prince, the scene of widespread looting in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

An abduction controversy also overshadowed the ongoing effort to feed, house and care for an estimated one million homeless Haitians, many of whom are still gasping for food, water, shelter and medical help.

Ten US missionaries, five women and five men, were arrested late Friday as they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic with a bus full of 33 Haitian children with no passports or permission to leave the country.

An investigating judge interviewed five of the Baptist group on Tuesday and will quiz the remaining five on Wednesday before passing on his findings to a tribunal that must decide whether to bring charges.

Georg Willeit, spokesman of SOS Children's Villages, the US aid group now caring for the children, told AFP that between 15 and 20 of them still had at least one parent.

"Some parents are now showing up to be reunited with their children, some of them met yesterday with social workers... but we cannot allow any reunion until we make clear why they were on that bus," Willeit said.

The aid group and the Haitian authorities have said they want to make sure the children were not taken with the consent of the parents.

The Americans, from an Idaho-based Baptist group called New Life Children's Refuge, are being detained at the judicial police headquarters in Port-au-Prince and face possible charges of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping minors and child-trafficking.

Gervais Charles, president of the Port-au-Prince Bar, said the nation's justice system would struggle to cope with a high-profile abduction trial.

"We have lost the foundations of our justice system. It is a very difficult moment for us, as we have no idea how we are going to rebuild," Charles said as he joined colleagues in a ceremony for colleagues killed by the quake.

"In the current situation, in and such a case, we need a quick trial. But in the current conditions that is practically impossible. So I would not rule out transferring the American citizens to America if the American system is competent, especially now that we have recovered the children."

Guetchine Ordalus, a member of the Haiti Bar Association, voiced his anger at what had happened to the children.

"Our country has been destroyed by an earthquake, and is a nation known for its economic and social problems. But that doesn't mean that foreigners can come here and take children away so easily."

Laura Silsby, the detained head of New Life Children's Refuge, insisted the group simply wanted to give the children a better life in an orphanage it planned to set up in the Dominican Republic.

"We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good," she told AFP from police detention. "We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned."

Meanwhile, UN officials said nearly half a million people had fled Port-au-Prince for the countryside since the quake, doubling a previous estimate of 235,000.

OCHA said 90 percent were staying with relatives, but the prices of basic commodities such as rice and sugar were rising and medical centers were short of supplies and equipment.

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