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Survivors still await more aid

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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the BBC’s Nick Davis, about conditions in Cite Soleil, a slum on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital Port au Prince. Many earthquake survivors there still don’t have the food or medical attention they need.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Construction is starting on large tent cities to house earthquake survivors in Haiti.  The tent cities are supposed to provide a safer and cleaner environment.  Right now, hundreds of thousands of survivors are massed in makeshift camps around Port au Prince.  Those camps lack sewage and other basic services and in many cases, quake survivors are still not getting the food and water they need.  The BBC’s Nick Davis is in Cite Soleil, a slum on the outskirts of Port au Prince.  He says tempers are starting to flare.

NICK DAVIS:  It’s not that far from the airport which is a really surprising thing, bearing in mind that a lot of people here still haven’t seen any food aid.  They’re receiving water but no food, no supplies of that nature to the people and many of them are getting angry and this is exactly the sort of area, exactly the sort of community which the U.N., police U.N. peacekeepers and the U.S. military really want to try to get a grip on because this is one of the areas which is notorious as a shantytown, known throughout the world as being one of the roughest ghetto communities in the world and you know, violence is something which many people here are accustomed to.  So when you hear about the situation in terms of security on the ground, it should be here that many things should be done to try and stop it but you know, despite that, you keep on hearing about the U.S. Marines going to isolated parts of the country, isolated rural communities to get aid but these people here are only maybe a couple of miles down the road from the airport and they still haven’t seen anything.

WERMAN:  Right.  Violence and riots have broken out in the past in Cite Soleil when there wasn’t the aftermath of an earthquake.  Now the police chief there in Cite Soleil and a district police chief in Port au Prince say there have been incidents of crime, beyond looting and stealing and that those who are committing the crimes are well armed.  What reports have you heard?

DAVIS:  Well we’re hearing when people have been down there that yes, indeed, people have come forward and said some quite horrific things, talking about rapes in the community, in the aftermath of the quake.  Clearly, some people are using this as an opportunity, knowing that the police, that the security forces are too busy dealing with the other situations which are happening all over the city, not necessarily any forms of violence or looting, but just generally trying to keep things under control because you know, large sections of this city still haven’t got any functioning form of control in terms of government, in terms of organization.  These makeshift camps, you know, they’re pretty much a law into their own, even though people have been very, very calm and very orderly in dealing with this situation in a way which I think has to be commended, the possibilities of criminality are very high.

WERMAN:  And for people who are injured, are you still hearing reports of people enduring pain and suffering while they wait for medical attention?

DAVIS: Very much so because the situation is, normally people would have got medical treatment within the first few hours if it happened anywhere else in the world but really, people are just getting the primary care now, a week and a few days, a week and a few days after they had these initial injuries.  Of course now, infection has set in.  In some cases, infection is so severe that you’re seeing amputations and that’s actually one of the most difficult things.  Yesterday I was walking around a little field hospital which had been put up in a clinic.  Normally they treat probably only a few patients a day.  There were over 400 a day which they’re seeing.  The amount of amputations I have to say were shocking.  There’s a little girl whose mother had brought her from [SOUNDS LIKE] Catfor, which is not far from the epicenter and she was telling me that there was no treatment available in Catfor so she made her way somehow, I imagine by Tap Tap, one of the local taxis, to get her treatment in Cite Soleil and you know, this child’s leg was gone, just below the knee.  There’s nothing and she was just staring out at me and it, you know, that’s a situation which you see people still with cuts, bruises, in some cases sores which you can clearly see are infected and it’s still a horrible situation for people working on the ground and my heart really does go out to some medical teams who are working here.

WERMAN:  That little girl, was she staring at you because she was just tough or was she in shock?  Was she receiving any morphine or pain killer?

DAVIS:  Marco, I have no idea.  I mean it’s just haunting.  She’s just staring out at me and it was just, you know, you don’t know what to say, you don’t know what to do.  You kind of have to block it out a little bit and I spoke to her mother and I asked her about the situation and you know, she just said, you know, my little girl’s ill.  Ill?  I mean ill is a cold.  And I just find the people here so resilient and still somehow so dignified despite what they’ve been through.  It’s amazing.

WERMAN:  The BBC’s Nick Davis in Cite Soleil on the outskirts of Port au Prince.

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