Patience runs thin in Haiti as fights break out for food
LES CAYES, HAITI >> Desperate residents who lost their homes and livelihoods nearly a week ago in Haiti’s earthquake are fighting over what little aid has been delivered, angered by the slow trickle of relief and the lack of government help.
By Friday, aid was flowing bit by bit to Les Cayes, one of the cities on Haiti’s southern peninsula worst hit by the quake, but the limited supplies only raised tensions among increasingly desperate residents.
Fights erupted in Les Cayes after a former president, Michel Martelly, visited a hospital with relief supplies Friday. Supporters scrambled to grab cash donations from Martelly’s bodyguards as he departed in a car. At least one person in the crowd picked up a large stone and tried to attack others, while the crowd chanted, “Kill him, kill him.”
Earlier Friday, gunshots rang out when an angry crowd surrounded a broken-down truck outside of Les Cayes, thinking it carried aid. And a convoy of four trucks bearing aid was looted on its way to the westernmost part of the stricken southern peninsula, two of them in front of a police station, the aid organization Food for the Poor said in a statement.
The group asked that authorities establish security measures to ensure the safe passage of assistance. “What happened brought frustration and sadness,” it said.
Earlier in the week, two surgeons were kidnapped in Port-au-Prince, the capital 80 miles to the west, where they were providing much-needed medical relief to quake victims airlifted there.
The abductions effectively shattered a shaky truce that Haiti’s organized gangs had announced shortly after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Aug. 14. The kidnappings of the doctors, including one of Haiti’s few orthopedic surgeons, prompted one hospital to close down Thursday for two days in protest, according to The Associated Press.