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Haiti update

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It’s been three weeks since the massive earthquake struck Haiti and residents there are still struggling to find food and shelter. Haitian police, along with the US military and UN forces are trying to maintain security. But armed men still managed to attack an aid convoy coming from the airport in recent days. At the same time, some aid distribution problems in Haiti have eased. The BBC’s Nick Davis is in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  It was three weeks ago today that a massive earthquake struck Haiti and three weeks since the start of a massive effort to help survivors.  Some of the problems that have slowed the distribution of aid in Haiti have eased, but many survivors are still struggling to find food and shelter and the security situation remains volatile.  Today, U.N. officials said a food convoy was recently ambushed by a group of armed men.  The men were driven away by police gunfire.  The BBC’s Nick Davis is in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.  Nick, now as far as aid goes, we’ve heard this week that the U.N. and aid groups are distributing coupons, primarily to women and the elderly that they can redeem for a 55 pound bag of rice.  That’s enough to feed an average family for two weeks.  It sounds like these latest food distribution systems may be working.

NICK DAVIS: It’s really clear as you walk around that you can see much more aid, much more food, much more water on the streets of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding provinces.  There are still places where food isn’t really as available as it should be, but even so, earlier on today I went up to one camp and just took a walk around.  Not only were there proper tents up, not only were people actually cooking, but you’ll see the bags of rice, now sometimes being transported around by any means necessary.  I saw some guys jumping on the back of a very small motor bike, less than 50cc, and they were hauling around this huge bag of rice.  I noticed they were going around to family members and friends and just distributing what little rice they have to them.  But they were nearly falling off the bike as they were trying to ride off to the next place with it.

MARCO WERMAN: Where are the people in the greatest need?  We’ve heard that nearly half a million people have fled the capital instead of going to resettlement camps.  Is that a good sign that pressure will ease on aid in the cities?  Or is it a bad sign that pressure is just going to increase in the country now?

NICK DAVIS: Well that’s one of the things that seem to have been mentioned in some of the places further north.  There seems to be a regional split in terms of aid clearly.  Places outside of region haven’t been as badly affected.  People are moving there and they’re saying where is the aid to help us?  I was in a place called St. Mark’s, which is one of the areas which was unaffected, about two hours drive north of Port-au-Prince, and people there, even U.N. policemen were saying to me, we need support.  Our facilities are being swamped by the amount of people who have suddenly descended on our city, on our town.

MARCO WERMAN: What about Haitian’s faith in their own government right now Nick?  We’ve heard reports this week of how one memorial service turned into an anti-government protest.

NICK DAVIS: In many respects some of this falls out of the fact that as far as they’re concerned their government has been quite quiet.  They’re seeing pronouncements from international leaders; they’re seeing the U.N. coming out in force.  They just feel their government has been very silent.  There is also an issue about corruption.  This government as far as many people would say, is probably the best government that the Haitian people have had in quite a long time.  It’s really been trying to clamp down on corruption, but even so, people still feel that corruption has been endemic in this country for such a long time that with all of these billions of aid pledged by the international community that some of it will eventually just disappear into the pockets of some of their leaders.  That’s what people are saying not only here, but also in the Haitian – - in the United States as well.

MARCO WERMAN: The BBC’s Nick Davis in Port-au-Prince.  Nick, very good to hear from you again, thank you.

NICK DAVIS: No problem Marco.

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