Haiti - earthquake victim relocations

Operation to move homeless out of Port-au-prince

Article published on the 2010-01-21 Latest update 2010-01-21 18:19 TU

A quake victim on a street in Port-au-prince, 21 January 2010
(Photo: Reuters)

Haitian officials revealed an operation to move hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors out of the capital, Port-au-prince. As aid workers continue to treat the injured, the US military has started to use three more airports to bring in supplies, though groups complain that medical supplies are not arriving fast enough.

“A large operation is taking place: we're in the process of relocating homeless people," said Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime on Thursday. "The government has made available to people free transportation.”

Some 34 buses will be made available to take victims of the 12 January earthquake to the south and north of the island to villages designed to hold 10,000 people each.

At least half a million people are now living outdoors in improvised camps, according to the International Organization for Migration.

US troops are clearing the main port, which was destroyed in the quake, hoping to re-open it Friday and start massive distribution of aid, which until now has only been trickling in.

The military is currently using four airports in Haiti and neighbouring Dominican Republic.

“Aid distribution is much slower than people would like,” said correspondent Jean Jacques Cornish, in Port-au-prince with South African aid group Gift of the Givers.

“I’m not sensing an anti-American feeling among ordinary Haitians, but with the rescue groups, there is, because there are medical supplies being turned away at the airport which is being controlled by the Americans,” said Cornish.

Also on Thursday, the Central Bank of Haiti opened under tight security to allow people to make deposits and withdraw cash.

Cornish reports that people are out on the streets, starting to do business with each other.

“There are signs of commerce returning: people selling things in the street Bread, for example,” he said, adding that it is being done in the streets because all the buildings are closed.

On Thursday, the World Bank said it would waive Haiti’s repayments on its 38 million dollars of debt for five years, and was looking at the possibility of cancelling it altogether.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has called for an aid plan on the scale of the US "Marshall Plan" that rebuilt Europe after World War II.