Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Human Rights Law Blogs -> Never In Our Names

Human Rights Law

: Never In Our Names

Your Help Is Needed To Save Lives In Haiti

By Alexa

The floodwaters are rising as I write this, and people are dying in Haiti. Your help is urgently needed. It's impossible to overstate the crisis that back-to-back hurricanes have created in the most impoverished country in the Americas.

A couple of things to consider. Due to global food crisis and starvation, Haitians took to the streets and overthrew their despotic government earlier this year. Long before the hurricanes (including Tropical Storm Fay as 70-80 Haitians were killed in that storm), clean water was not free. Those few who have running water in their homes in Haiti's most impoverished areas sell about one third of an American bathroom-sized Dixie cup (a sip or two) for centimes that most don't have. The selling of potable water is privatized and vendors can refuse to sell to you for no reason, even if you have the money.  

In Port au Prince and Cap Haitien, the "upper" class (mostly former macoutes) sell tiny cups of water for more centimes than the average Haitian sees in a year. The hurricanes will of course intensify the existing great needs for shelter, food and clean water.

In Haiti, mud is a dietary supplement. For some, mud is a dietary staple.

The ongoing exodus from Gonaives as well as the increasing panic, hunger, lack of shelter throughout Haiti continue to pose a challenge as to where to direct recovery efforts. The northern areas of the island such as Cap Haïtien are inaccessible as yet due to flooding.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières are in Gonaïves, Saint Michel de l'Atalaye and Port-au-Prince.

A three-person MSF team went to Cap Haïtien to assess the emergency response capacities and establish local contacts to help immediately assess needs in aftermath of Hurricane Ike. MSF teams have not been able to reach many of the flooded areas on the eastern side of the community. Hospitals and health structures are reported to have been seriously damaged in this area.  

Today [September 7, 2008] the flooded areas between Gonaïves, Port de Paix, and Cap Haïtien cannot be reached while towns like Enry or Gros Morne, which were strongly affected by Hanna, have not received any assistance. MSF is still pushing to gain access to these areas, though the coming hurricane might limit their ability to reach these areas.

The World Food Program reports:

WFP is battling the elements to bring a lifeline to Haitian families hit by the impact of successive deadly storms, which have displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed scores of homes and plantations.

"WFP has first-rate logistics, and this storm system is putting us to the test," said Myrta Kaulard, WFP Representative in Haiti. "We are sending food, water and other humanitarian supplies by air and sea while anticipating further emergency needs from approaching storms."

WFP has already distributed food to some 14,000 people affected by Hurricane Gustav, which hit southern Haiti last week.

And via Southern Ledger:

Flooded roads, broken piers and mass cell phone outages impeded efforts Friday to get food to about 2,000 hungry people, even as Hurricane Ike threatened to trigger more deadly floods across the water-logged city this weekend.

The rusty container ship Trois Rivieres, chartered by the U.N. World Food Program, arrived belching white smoke at a remote private port outside the city. It was guarded by Argentine peacekeepers brandishing assault rifles.

Within hours, the U.N. began distributing high-energy biscuits and water to emergency shelters where at least 40,000 people were marooned and increasingly desperate. Workers delivered aid to some 2,000 people in two shelters before operations were suspended at dusk, considering it too dangerous to work in the city after dark.

As of fifteen minutes ago, latest news from AP indicates that the catastrophe can, in fact, get worse -- and get much worse very soon.

The exodus out of Gonaives is massive," he said.

Police director Godson Orleus, whose Artibonite region includes Gonaives, said officials fear fatalities could rise into the hundreds based on interviews with residents, but he disputed reports that hundreds more had died.

But the respite was expected to be brief. Ike, a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, was forecast to pass just north of Haiti on Sunday. Even if Haiti avoids a direct hit, Ike is almost certain to bring rain to the fertile Artibonite Valley, whose rivers funnel into Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, and the surrounding flood plain.

Max Cocsi, who directs Belgium's mission in Haiti of Doctors Without Borders, noted it would take little rain to compound the disaster because the soil is already saturated and rivers are overflowing from three tropical storms in less than three weeks. The two earlier storms - Fay and Gustav - killed at least 96 other Haitians.

Rescue convoys have been blocked for days by floodwaters, collapsed bridges and washed-out roads. A U.S. plane from Miami delivered enough relief supplies for 20,000 people to the capital Thursday, much of which was brought to Gonaives by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and by air.

Helpful Links
parryander's Ike Over Haiti, People Under Water. The diary and comments have many excellent suggestions on ways to help the people of Haiti directly.

Haiti Is Still Forgotten As It Is Pounded By Yet Another Hurricane, Ike by Kyledeb at Citizen Orange. Kyle has been updating news on the crisis and relief efforts for several days.

Nightprowlkitty: Please.

Hell in Haiti by Diane G at Never In Our Names and The Wild, Wild Left.

More News and Resources
Haiti Relief in Pictures (BBC).

UN sees storms add to hard-hit Haitis food crisis.

Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis belatedly took office on Friday with a promise to aid those left destitute by recent storms while preparing for looming Hurricane Ike.

Please help. I beg you, forego your Starbuck's for a day or two on behalf of people whose very lives depend on the kindness of their fellow citizens of the world.

Médecins Sans Frontières.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).