The US said on Sunday it would resume airlifting critically injured earthquake victims from Haiti after a row over who would pay for their care halted flights.
The news emerged after Haitian police detained 10 members of a US Christian charity group who allegedly tried to leave the country with more than 30 children who survived the devastating quake.
The UN food agency was also launching a massive food effort targeted at vulnerable women in a bid to ease some of the chaos surrounding the massive international relief effort for the Jan. 12 disaster.
PHOTO: AFP
“The flights are on track to resume in the next 12 hours,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “We are working with the Haitian government and the international community to meet this urgent need and save lives.”
The US military said on Saturday it had stopped medical evacuations of the critically injured until a row over who will pay for their care was settled.
“Given concerns about the strain on domestic health capacity, we worked to increase cooperation with our international partners, NGOs and states to expand access to additional facilities” to care for the gravely hurt, Vietor said.
Once US officials confirmed there were more medical centers available both in the US and abroad to treat the Haitians, “we determined that we can resume these critical flights,” Vietor said.
Flights carrying people with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds ended on Wednesday after Florida Governor Charlie Crist asked the federal government to shoulder some of the cost of the care, US media reported.
The 7.0-magnitude quake killed about 170,000 people, wounded about 200,000 and left more than 1 million homeless and desperately short of food, water and medical attention.
Amid warnings that child traffickers could take advantage of the quake chaos, Haitian police seized five men and five women with US passports and two Haitians as they tried to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic with a busload of children aged between two months and 14 years.
Border police “saw a bus with a lot of children. Thirty-three children. When asked about the children’s documents, they had no documents,” Haitian Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said.
Speaking just outside her detention cell near Port-au-Prince airport, Laura Silsby, head of the Idaho-based New Life Children’s Refuge charity, said the group’s aims were entirely altruistic.
“We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good,” Silsby said. “We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned.”
Patricia Vargas, director of the Haitian center where the children are being cared for, however, said that most of the youngsters insist they still have family.
Some of the older children had spoken to aid workers and “say their parents are alive and some of them gave us an address and phone numbers,” she said.
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince said the group was being held for “alleged violations of Haitian laws related to immigration.”
Haitian officials have raised concerns about child trafficking and warned that legitimate adoption agencies may rush to take orphans before proper checks have been conducted.
“Everything is disorganized since Jan. 12 and some people are using it to devote themselves to a veritable trade in children,” said Jeanne-Bernard Pierre, director of Haiti’s Institute of Social Welfare.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station