UN appeals for US$120m for victims of hurricane
MARFRANC, Haiti — At a cramped police station serving as a makeshift clinic, Darline Derosier fastened IV drips to jail cell bars, wiped the brows of cholera patients and tended to the wounds of those injured when Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti’s southwestern peninsula.
She was the only health worker helping about 40 patients Monday as she waited for help to arrive in Marfranc nearly a week after the Category 4 storm struck on Oct. 4.
Among the patients was an elderly woman lying unconscious on a jail cell floor with a leg bandaged in an old rag and a man with gashes around his neck, his eyes fluttering.
“People will die soon if we don’t get some aid,” an overwhelmed Derosier said. The town is a 45-minute drive southwest from the coastal city of Jeremie, where food, medicine and fresh water are finally arriving.
The UN humanitarian agency in Geneva made an emergency appeal Monday for nearly US$120 million in aid to help hundreds of thousands.