Haiti

Haiti looks for hope from the air

Impoverished flood victims pushed "over the edge" await supplies from precious copters.

	[Times photos: John Pendygraft] Mapou residents struggle to get their names on a list for food distribution at a relief center set up to help the victims of recent floods. Aristide heads for S. Africa - for now

Flood victims divide a family-sized ration of rice Sunday at a distribution center. Several flights bring supplies from Port-au-Prince daily.

Above: Floodwaters still nudge homes in Mapou on Sunday. More than 1,500 people are missing and presumed dead in the Mapou area.

MAPOU, Haiti - By noon on Sunday, the doctors and nurses at the makeshift Red Cross hospital in this disaster-stricken village had treated four cases of malaria, one woman for a severe foot laceration and a boy whose head was cut open by a corrugated tin roof.

About 20 people, most of them injured during last week's massive floods, huddled together on benches, waiting to be evaluated.

Nurse Emilie Tixier looked over at the people waiting, then at the doctor, who was bandaging his umpteenth leg of the day.

"For the moment, there's no diarrhea," she sighed.

That's a good sign. It means that the water hasn't been contaminated. Yet.

With more than 1,500 people missing and presumed dead in the Mapou area alone, health officials are worried that the dead people and animals floating in the floodwaters will contaminate drinking supplies. Tixier said much of her time is spent telling people not to drink, play or bathe in the water.

There simply aren't enough aid workers to comb the valley to look for bodies and bury them. There are barely enough people and supplies to help the living, who desperately need everything from food to plastic tarps to build temporary housing.

About 75,000 people are thought to be affected by the flooding. They are spread over a mountainous, 150-mile region.

"Look at this place," said Marko Kokic, of the International Committee of the Red Cross. "It's so remote - in by helicopter, out by helicopter. There's only so many helicopters to go around."

There are only about 14 helicopters in the whole country, most of them owned by the U.S. military, which was already in Haiti when the disaster happened. Troops are stationed around the country because of the political unrest that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February.

The Haitian government does not have a helicopter. There are no private choppers for rent at the Port-au-Prince airport. So the Red Cross rented one in the neighboring Dominican Republic - Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with that country - and flew it over the border. It brings food, water and medical supplies every day to the hardest-hit areas of the disaster.

The lack of helicopters is only one of many problems facing frustrated aid workers. Already-remote villages are further isolated by the destruction of roads to other devastated towns. The roads are impassable even by heavy trucks.

Haiti is so poor that even in Port-au-Prince, the capital, it's difficult to get supplies needed to help the countryside recover. There, in a city teeming with poverty, life goes on as usual. Most in the city are oblivious to the suffering in the mountains.

There are only about a dozen aid workers in Mapou, an eight-hour drive southeast of Port-au-Prince, but more are arriving daily. It is an international effort: Kokic is from Montreal; several are from Paris, and the two doctors are from Cuba. They were already working in another Haitian village and walked several hours over a mountain to help.

"People were already living on the edge," said Kokic. "This just pushed them over the edge."

Some of the aid workers, including Kokic, had just returned from a trip to a nearby lake, one that was carved out by the rain one week ago. They fished two bodies out of the water, and hadn't yet even taken off their face masks when they were faced with a barrage of other problems.

Kokic and Erich Baumann, another Red Cross worker, were worried about the plastic sheeting that was supposed to arrive from Port-au-Prince. People whose homes had been destroyed in the village of Bawar were taking shelter in the mountains. Kokic said the Red Cross needed to relocate those people soon, with the plastic as a roof.

This needs to be done soon, he said. Rain is in the forecast, and Kokic said more mudslides and flooding are imminent. About 900 lives hang in the balance.

"I need those f------ sheets," Baumann told Kokic angrily. "We were promised them."

Kokic nodded his head wearily.

Outside of the hospital, a group of people from another village talked about the injured people back home. They couldn't walk down the mountain to the hospital.

"What are we going to do?" asked Carmelo Louis, 30, whose mother and two children were killed in the flood. His village is one of many not yet touched by international aid. It may be days, or weeks, before anyone discovers the true numbers of casualties in the region.

Near where Louis was standing on a dirt road, groups of people shouted and argued over flour rations, just flown in by the U.S.-led multinational military force. Each day, several flights make the 12-minute trip with supplies from Port-au-Prince.

The military is also flying in about a dozen journalists every day to the affected areas. Villagers swarm around anyone with a notepad, explaining their dire situations and hoping for relief. Many talked about the mothers that died - Sunday was Mother's Day in Haiti - and many had planned a special meal.

Cecilia Jean, 28, lost her mother and grandmother in the waters that rushed into Mapou. She held a crumpled note. It was scrawled in a careful Creole cursive, a compilation of the devastation and loss in her world.

"Silliamene Jean - aunt, four children, father, seven cousins, two pigs," it said. She listed at least eight other people, their losses more heartbreaking with every sentence. She couldn't talk much about her mother. She had more immediate needs, and she took the opportunity to tell them to the foreigners who had just stepped out of a precious helicopter.

This one was full of journalists who couldn't help, but other copters soon arrived. They carried food and clean water. And hope.

- Tamara Lush can be reached at 727 893-8612 or at lush@sptimes.com

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright