17:38 25Sep2004 DJN-DJ Death Toll Climbs To 1,500 In Haiti After Jeanne

DJ Death Toll Climbs To 1,500 In Haiti After Jeanne

GONAIVES, Haiti (AP)--The staggering death toll from Tropical Storm
Jeanne shot upward to an estimated 1,500 people Saturday, with 900 Haitians
still missing as a thunderstorm drenched the homeless who are living on
rooftops and sidewalks.
U.N. peacekeepers said they were sending reinforcements to help keep
order among desperate survivors who have been looting aid trucks and mobbing
food distribution centers.
Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue estimated more than 1,500 dead,
said Paul Magloire, an advisor. At least 900 more were missing. Some 300,000
are homeless, most in the northwestern city of Gonaives.
With gang members trying to steal food out of the hands of people at
aid centers, 140 Uruguayan soldiers were on their way to reinforce about 600
U.N. peacekeepers already in this hard-hit city, said Toussaint
Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the U.N. mission.
"Security is one of our major concerns," he said.
Officials said gangsters had forced their way into distribution centers
and stolen food. Kongo-Doudou said troops had been able to chase them away
without violence.
A U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator, Eric Mouillesarine, said people
were mobbing relief workers and "there's nothing we can do."
U.N. troops from Argentina fired smoke grenades Friday when about 500
men, women and children tried to break into a schoolyard where CARE
International was handing out grain and water to an orderly line of women.
The sunburned, unwashed flood victims returned in surges once the air
cleared.
The director of the World Food Program's Haiti operation, Guy Gavreau,
said Friday that aid groups had been able to get food to only about 25,000
people this week -one-tenth of Gonaives' population.
During the night, lightning bolts lit the sky above blacked-out
Gonaives, thunderclaps exploded and sheets of rain lashed the thousands
living on the street and on concrete roofs of flooded homes.
The rain cleared up Saturday morning, but floodwaters rose again in
some mud-coated areas of the city that had dried out in the week since
Jeanne struck.
Some people said they hoped to evacuate the city.
"If one person gets sick, we'll all be sick," said Ysemarie
Saint-Louis, who spent the night on her roof with more than 30 relatives who
crowded under a small tin shelter during the thunderstorm. When the rain let
up, they went back to sleep on wet mattresses and blankets.
Saint-Louis said she and the others hoped to go elsewhere in Haiti,
such as the capital, Port-au-Prince, but she wasn't sure where.
Genevieve Montaguere, a nun from Guadeloupe, said relief deliveries
were being limited to women because gangsters had bullied their way in
earlier to make sure that only their buddies got food.
The strongest gang, the Cannibal Army, began a rebellion here in
February that quickly was joined by soldiers of Haiti's disbanded army and
led to the February ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The rebels
refuse to disarm, keeping the country unstable.
It was unclear which gangs were causing trouble, Kongo-Doudou said.
"The city is just filled with gangs."
The thunderstorm hit as floodwaters finally were beginning to recede in
Gonaives, where mud contaminated by overflowing sewage was forming a crust.
People tried to fight the stench by holding limes or kerchiefs to their
noses.
Kongo-Doudou said a team of specialists would begin to clean up the
contamination. "We have to prevent the spread of diseases," he said, adding
that the United Nations would be making an urgent appeal for more emergency
aid from the world's nations.
A truck carrying relief supplies from the Church of God was attacked
Friday when it entered Gonaives. People jumped on the moving truck, pried
open the doors and threw out boxes of supplies.
U.N. peacekeepers shoved people off the truck and then escorted it to
the mud-caked camp of Argentine troops, who stood guard as church members
threw out bananas, bottles of cooking oil and secondhand clothing. A
stampede erupted, with people diving into mud to grab what they could.
Planeloads of relief supplies from several nations and aid groups have
arrived in Port-au-Prince, but delivery has been delayed by damaged roads
and security fears.
Aid trucks must ford floodwaters and mudslides on National Route 1,
likely to be more hazardous after the new rains. At least three trucks were
mired in ditches along the road Friday.
Chilean troops in the Brazilian-led U.N. force were ferrying in
supplies by helicopter, but not enough.
The floods from Jeanne destroyed all of the rice and fruit harvest in
the Artibonite, Haiti's breadbasket, "so now the country can't even feed
itself without outside help," said Gavreau, the World Food Program official.
The crisis was only the latest tragedy in Haiti, a country of 8 million
people that has suffered 30 coups. Last weekend's storm was worsened by
Haiti's nearly total deforestation, which left valleys surrounding Gonaives
unable to hold water dumped during some 30 hours of pounding by Jeanne.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires