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In Haiti: Looting, Lynching and Miracle Survivals
By
Sabrina Jaszi
Published Jan 17, 2010
Modified Jan 18, 2010
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By
Sabrina Jaszi
Published Jan 17, 2010
Modified Jan 18, 2010
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With donations rolling in after last week’s massive earthquake, aid organizations are negotiating how best to implement their rescue missions to devastated Haiti. Individual success stories abound, but rescue workers and survivors must operate amidst the violence, danger and scarcity of resources that’s resulted from the natural disaster.
Currently the amount of funding for Haiti far exceeds the aid being made available to earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince. “We see all the commotion, but we still have nothing to drink,” said one Haitian. The NY Times reported that “about 1,700 people camped on the grass in front of the prime minister’s office compound in the Pétionville neighborhood, pleading for biscuits and water-purification tablets distributed by aid groups.” In part, it’s a problem of access since Port-au-Prince’s airport has just one runway, its port is destroyed, roads are obstructed by rubble and a fuel-shortage makes car-travel difficult. Amid the chaos, some survivors have turned to violence and looting. Early on Saturday a mob broke into stores and warehouses and began throwing merchandise to the crowd below. Knives were pulled and guns were fired over the rolls of fabric, sauce pans and other stolen items. At least one looter has been publicly lynched.
Meanwhile, NY’s elite team of firefighters and policemen is still finding survivors in the rubble, days after the earthquake. Last night, members of the NYPD-FDNY Urban Rescue Team saved three people trapped in a collapsed supermarket, police spokesman Paul Browne told the NY Post. They kept themselves alive with food and water from the store. Another woman was freed from a university building where she was trapped for more than 100 hours alongside 8 corpses. Deyhydrated but otherwise uninjured, she was reunited with her husband. The death count remains uncertain: some officials say about 50,000 bodies have been collected, while others offer a more general estimate in the tens of thousands.
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Sabrina Jaszi
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