Five days after the earthquake that devastated southwestern Haiti, the toll is still improving.
Civil Protection announced Wednesday that it counted 2,189 dead, more than 12,000 injured and 332 missing.
"
Search and rescue operations are continuing,
" she said on her Twitter account.
The challenge is to safely deliver humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of disaster victims, some of whom live in remote areas.
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"
We have about 600,000 people directly affected and in need of immediate humanitarian assistance,
" said Jerry Chandler, director of Haitian civil protection, from the national emergency operations center in Port-au-Prince.
“We
had to find ways to ensure security, which remains a big challenge.
We know that there was a problem at the southern exit of Port-au-Prince, in Martissant, but this problem has apparently been resolved since we have been able to pass for the last two days,
”he explains.
Informal truce
Since the beginning of June, any safe traffic was impossible on two kilometers of the national road which crosses the zone of Martissant, poor district of the Haitian capital, ravaged by the clashes between gangs.
Following the earthquake that devastated the country, sporadic gunfire and random vehicle attacks have ceased according to the authorities, without any police operation taking place to regain control of the neighborhood.
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If this informal truce observed by the armed bands is a relief for humanitarian actors, the distribution of aid to the victims of the earthquake remains no less complicated.
"
It has happened that we are faced with a little frustrated and impatient people who cause problems and who block the convoys,
" reports Jerry Chandler.
“
The idea is to be able to arrive as quickly as possible and serve as many people as possible,
” he says with conviction.
