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Death spreads to storm shelters in Haiti
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-09 15:40 GONAIVES, Haiti -- Nine people died in shelters in this marooned city desperate for relief supplies, even as waters from Hurricane Ike receded and a US Navy ship dispatched amphibious boats to deliver food.
Two children were among the dead at shelters across Gonaives on Monday, said Daniel Dupiton of region's civil protection department. It was not immediately clear what caused those deaths. Thousands have taken refuge in schools, churches and homes on high ground, many with scant supplies or supervision.
"We cannot confirm that they died because of hunger," said Vicky Delore Ndjeuga, a U.N. spokesman for the mission in Gonaives. "We need to make an examination to make sure it was because of food." With most roads across the country still impassible, Haiti, and the world, still lacked a complete picture of the destruction, and desperation was setting in among people who have spent days in the floodwaters and mud. Aid groups are appealing for donations to sustain a lengthy response, warning of a secondary disaster caused by waterborne illnesses and other problems in the weeks ahead. The death toll, which government officials said stood at 331 people in four tropical storms in less than a month, is sure to rise as more bodies surface in the mud. Two more bodies were found Monday in coastal Cabaret, where 60 people died as mudslides and floods unleashed by a swollen river crushed homes in the middle of the night. Sixteen others were missing, mostly children. Late Monday, authorities confirmed 10 more deaths, five attributed to Ike and five to Tropical Storm Hanna. In Gonaives, Police Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said his poorly equipped force, 15 officers for the city of 160,000, has buried dozens of badly decomposed and unidentifiable corpses in graves outside the city. "After three days, those bodies could not stay," said Dorfeuille, adding he witnessed the burial of five people. It wasn't clear how these bodies fit with previous tallies of the dead, but Dorfeuille denied reports citing him as giving a death toll of nearly 500 in Gonaives. On one city street, a man used a rope to drag a bloated body through the floodwaters. |
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