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By Maria Caspani LONDON (AlertNet) - Two weeks after a powerful earthquake killed as many as 200,000 Haitians, hopes of pulling more people alive from under the rubble are fading rapidly and the international relief effort is focused on getting help to hun
By Maria Caspani
LONDON (AlertNet) - Two weeks after a powerful earthquake killed as many as 200,000 Haitians, hopes of pulling more people alive from under the rubble are fading rapidly and the international relief effort is focused on getting help to hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless, hungry and injured.
Aid workers say optimism is returning to the small Caribbean nation but huge challenges remain. Here's a selection of their recent comments.
In a statement on Tuesday, Church World Service quoted Herode Guillaumettre, director of Christian Centre of Integrated Development in Haiti, as saying: "I am not afraid anymore, I have survived the worst disaster in the history of Haiti and I am alive talking to you now. I can survive anything now."
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on Monday: "Neighbourhood committees have started to organise throughout the city. Bulldozers are removing debris and tearing down damaged buildings. More food is available in street markets, albeit at two or three times the prices charged prior to the disaster ... Tanker trucks supply clean water several times a day in most camps, where hundreds of thousands of people are living in makeshift tents."
"Hospitals are still overcrowded and often short of supplies, but the long lines one saw in front of their gates only a few days ago have disappeared."
ShelterBox on Tuesday reported its worker Mark Pearson as saying: "There are hundreds of thousands of people who are injured. The walking wounded are everywhere. People are being taken to hospital in wheelbarrows with their legs bandaged up with plastic bags... Aid is starting to arrive so there is a lot of hope here."
In a release on Wednesday, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) quoted its emergency medical coordinator Rosa Crestani as saying: "We need now to be able to do more limb-saving interventions. That means operating on people with wounds that are getting infected and which may infect the entire limb in a few days, unless they undergo surgery."
"The mental impact of the disaster is becoming more prominent in the symptoms that are presented by patients coming to MSF's general clinics. One clinic in Leogane reported that around half of the people they were treating were suffering from mental trauma."
On Monday Plan UK quoted its employee in London Unni Krishnan as saying: "The most vulnerable groups - children, pregnant and breast-feeding women, people with disabilities and elderly - will bear the brunt. This reality compels aid groups and development organisations to focus most of our efforts on children."
"Food, water, shelter and medical treatment are absolutely vital to save lives but we must also treat children for psycho-social trauma. Simple things like play games in a safe area give children a much-needed sense of normalcy."
Action by Churches Together (ACT) said in a statement on Tuesday: "The situation continues to be desperate for the people affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Material aid is slowly reaching them but, due to the lack of data and weak government coordination, the organisation and distribution of aid is still a challenge. Some incidents of fighting for aid have been registered but they are mostly due to lack of proper organisation of the distribution."
"The Government has declared the search and rescue phase over. Still people continue trying to find loved ones by scratching into the rubble with rudimentary tools. Otherwise, some normality is coming back to the country for the privileged ones unaffected by the earthquake. Gas stations and supermarkets are reopening and fuel and food are now available."
Irish Red Cross quoted Will Rogers in Port-au-Prince as saying on Sunday: "At one of the main hospitals there was a reasonably strong smell of decomposing bodies, I later found out that there were a number of bodies in a training centre across the road. The smell of the bodies stuck with me most of the day."
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