Haiti - earthquake

Haitian solidarity, despite chaotic aid effort

Article published on the 2010-01-17 Latest update 2010-01-17 11:51 TU

Mexican rescue workers take part in a search and rescue operation in the rubble of Saint Gérard University in Port-au-Prince
(Photo: Reuters

Hundreds of tonnes of aid are reportedly blocked at Port-au-Prince airport, failing to get through to the thousands left homeless and hungry after this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti. But predicted violence has failed to materialise, according to our reporter in the capital.

"International aid continues to arrive at the airport in Port-au-Prince," reports Daniel Vallot of RFI's French service. "But it is still very difficult to get this aid into the devastated areas of the capital."

There has been some improvement, he says, with medicine starting to arrive in hospitals and some food and water being distributed by the UN's World Food Programme and the US army.

The Paris-based charity Médécins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Sunday that disruption at the airport has seriously hampered its work.

"The logjam is a major difficulty, forcing a number of important freight flights to turn back," the organisation said. "The lack of authorisations to land at the airport has already prevented the arrival of an MSF field hospital with inflatable tents, which is however essential."

MSF's surgical units are "working non-stop", the organisation said, and its teams have "never seen so many seriously injured".

The violence predicted by many commentators has not materialised in Port-au-Prince, Vallot reports.

"All over the city you can see a remarkable outburst of mutual aid and solidarity," he says. "In the streets, in the hospitals, it is mostly Haitian volunteers who are trying to help out, even though they have sometimes lost all they had in the catatstrophe.

"There is nothing like the security chaos that people were saying would be inevitable," he points out.