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Haitians tire of waiting, start own rebuilding
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-30 14:32
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Many have tired of living in tents improvised from tarps, sheets and bedspreads, opting to rebuild their homes rather than find new plots.
Lassegue said such rebuilding wouldn't be tolerated — and that the government wants to develop and implement a comprehensive reconstruction plan that might feature building codes, an anomaly in this impoverished nation.
"We've been sleeping outside but the rains will come soon," said Merilus Lovis, 27, taking wooden planks and erecting them for walls inside the foundation of his former home, where his wife and daughter died. "I'm scared of the floods on this hillside but I don't think that God would let such bad things happen twice."
"People are afraid to build with concrete now," Louis said.
In another neighborhood, people dug through destroyed homes to salvage materials. Women did the wash amid the ruins.
"I have stayed, but I lost my home," said Thomas Brutus, who lives perched precariously on a debris-strewn hillside in a shack made from the remains of destroyed homes. "So I made this little house, even though I know it's dangerous. We have been here for 14 days and have received no help."
Many residents say they're staying because they grow vegetables on their small plots. Thousands of others have swarmed to improvised tent camps, where Elisabeth Byrs, an official of the UN's humanitarian coordination office, said there is a "major concern" about sanitation.
About 200,000 people are in need of post-surgery follow-up treatment and an unknown number have untreated injuries, she said.
Sporadic looting and violence continued to plague the devastated capital, and Associated Press journalists witnessed a deadly clash between looters and security guards Friday in downtown Port-au-Prince.
Teams of looters pried open a store's steel security gate and were making off with refrigerators and other appliances when a security guard showed up, opened fire and killed one of the young men. As he and other guards detained other looters, kicking them as they lay on the floor, soldiers of the US 82nd Airborne Division happened by and calmed the situation. The Americans then called in Haitian police, who took control of the captives.
It couldn't immediately be determined whether the private guard who shot the young man was arrested.
In other developments:
• Haiti hopes schools outside the capital not affected by the earthquake can open in coming weeks and that those not destroyed in Port-au-Prince could start operating in March, Lassegue said. An estimated 200 schools in Port-au-Prince were destroyed or partially damaged, many of them collapsing on students. Getting children into schools would help protect them from predators taking advantage of the quake that orphaned unknown thousands and separated thousands more from their parents. Haiti has always had a problem with traffickers looking for child and sex slaves.
• The United Nations asked for a $700 million agricultural investment fund for Haiti to boost food production and create jobs. The 18-month plan is part of the government's strategy to rebuild the country, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said. Top needs are seeds, tools and fertilizers so farmers can plan for spring planting season.
"The food situation in Haiti was already very fragile before the earthquake and Haiti was highly dependent on food imports," Alexander Jones, FAO's emergency response manager in Haiti, said in a statement.
• The United States has distributed some 43,000 radios to people in Port-au-Prince so they can hear public service announcements.
• The US Drug Enforcement Administration said it had suspended operations in Haiti so its agents can focus on the disaster. Traffickers have long favored Haiti as a transit point for South American drugs.
