The UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) director flew to a Haitian city still encased in mud on Friday to draw global attention to the ongoing disaster that has enormously complicated the country’s struggle to feed itself.
The WFP said it has asked for US$54 million to help Haiti recover from four killer storms, but so far has received only US$1 million.
Beginning a two-day survey of the disaster area, WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said “concerted global action” was needed in a country where famine loomed.
PHOTO: AP
“We need more and we are ready,” she said, adding that some previously flooded roads had reopened. “Now we can handle more food and water.”
She urged agriculture officials to buy seeds and other produce from local farmers to revive the economy.
“Haiti wants to grow its own food and to be self-sufficient, not just waiting on food assistance while they recover from this devastating storm,” Sheeran said.
Haitian President Rene Preval also pleaded for help, asking for long-term assistance on Friday in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
Devastation awaited Sheeran in this coastal city, largely cut off from the rest of Haiti because of flooded roads and wrecked bridges.
Gray mud was still piled waist-high in homes, coating prized television sets, books and cooking pots. Tens of thousands still live in shelters and roam muddy streets looking for food.
At least 194 people were killed by the tropical storms in less than a month this summer in Gonaives and the surrounding region, the largest share of a nationwide death toll of 425.
Some of the muck is topsoil — precious in this deforested country — flushed from the mountains above when a river broke its banks, churned through the countryside and sliced through town before emptying into the sea.
Clouds of mosquitoes now breed in Gonaives’ wet ground, raising fears that disease will spread. Children play in the muck. In a hospital, brown mud immobilizes an empty wheelchair.
Some families bail the mud from their houses, soldiering on in the stench. Mothers use muddy rags to wipe off kitchen utensils.
The floods from Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike destroyed an estimated 60 percent of Haiti’s food harvest. The WFP said it has delivered more than 2,200 tonnes of food during this emergency, enough to feed almost 500,000 people.
Speaking in New York, Preval thanked the world for its help, but said emergency aid alone would not solve Haiti’s plight and that long-term solutions were needed.
“Once this first wave of humanitarian compassion is exhausted, we will be left as always, truly alone, to face new catastrophes and see restarted, as if in a ritual, the same exercises of mobilization,” Preval said.
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