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15 dead bodies, black box of crashed Afghan plane found

Afghan troops unload the remains of the bodies of victims of an aeroplane crash from a helicopter in Parwan province May 21, 2010.  (Xinhua/AFP Photo)



Afghan troops unload the remains of the bodies of victims of an aeroplane crash from a helicopter in Parwan province May 21, 2010. Fifteen dead bodies of the victims of the Afghan passenger plane which crashed five days ago have been found in mountains of Gorband district, in the country's northern Parwan province, officials said Friday.(Xinhua/AFP Photo)


Afghan troops leave a helicopter that has returned from the crash site of a Pamir Airways passenger jet which went down in the mountains north of Kabul, in Parwan May 21, 2010.

Fifteen dead bodies of the victims of the Afghan passenger plane which crashed five days ago have been found in mountains of Gorband district, in the country's northern Parwan province, officials said Friday.

"So far 15 bodies of the plane crash victims have been found," a member of parliament Fatima Aziz who visited the crash site told Xinhua.

British troops march through Russia's Red Square for the first time during Victory Day parade

Russian troops line up in perfect formation for the largest-ever post-Soviet military parade on Red Square

Vintage Soviet-era T-34 tank rumble through the square

Mr Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin watch the celebrations begin

A mobile launcher with a Topol-M missile travels along the route of the parade

British soldiers marched on Red Square in Moscow for the first time today to mark the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Seventy-six soldiers from 2 Company 1st Battalion Welsh Guards were representing the UK at the invitation of the Russian Government.

They marched alongside more than 10,500 Russian troops and others from the U.S. and France.
The event - thought to be costing £26 million - also featured a 1,000-strong military band, 161 tanks and missiles and 127 aircraft.

The hour-long parade saw six types of defence equipment on show in a display of military prowess set to dominate the city's sky and roads.

Guardsman Ian Mundy said: 'There is a sense of pride to be in this massive parade on Red Square.

'It seems that everyone is interested in us as well and I'm proud to be a part of that.'

Lance Corporal John Sanigar added: 'It's a brilliant place to be at the moment for the Army and the Welsh Guards.'The Welsh Guards are staying at the Moscow Military Academy as guests of the Russian Army.

China to hold day of mourning for quake victims

Chinese President Hu Jintao(C)speaks to soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and policemen carrying out relief work at Zhaxike Village of Gyegu Town in quake-hit Yushu County,northwest China's Qinghai Province, April 18, 2010




Aerial Image taken on April 16, 2010 shows the quake-hit Yushu County, northwest China's Qinghai Province

China ordered flags be flown at half-staff and a halt to all entertainment, including online games and sports events, for a national day of mourning Wednesday to honor more than 2,000 people killed by a devastating earthquake in a remote Tibetan region.

Similar arrangements were made two years ago following a larger and deadlier earthquake in southern China's Sichuan province that left nearly 90,000 dead or missing. Such high-profile displays of government concern are also likely aimed at tamping any potential unrest among the mostly Tibetan victims.

Ten American Christians arrested in Haiti trying to take 33 orphans out of the country

Haitian authorities have questioned a group of 10 Americans who are accused of illegally trying to smuggle 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti.

A prosecutor met with the Baptist church group at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, where they have been held since they were arrested on Friday trying to cross into the Dominican Republic with a busload of children.

The Baptist missionaries deny charges that they were engaged in child trafficking and insist they were only trying to help vulnerable children left orphaned by the quake.
Haitian authorities said the five men and five women had no paperwork authorising them to take the children, who are aged between two months and 12 years.

The group, from the Idaho-based charity New Life Children's Refuge, were stopped at Malpasse, Haiti's main border crossing, after police conducted a search of their bus.

Officers said they were arrested because they did not have proof that the youngsters - many of whom were sick and dehydrated - were orphans.

The case could be diplomatically sensitive at a time when the U.S. is spearheading a huge relief effort to help hundreds of thousands of victims of the quake.

Yesterday, the U.S. military resumed medical evacuation flights of critically-injured victims to America, ending a five-day suspension caused by a dispute over where to treat patients and who would pay for their care.
Prime Minister of Haiti Max Bellerive said yesterday he was outraged by the group's 'illegal trafficking of children' in a country long afflicted by the problem.

But some parents say they would part with their children if it would mean a better life.

Adonis Helman, 44, one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp yesterday said: 'Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners.'

'I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give - probably my youngest.'

The arrests will renew concerns about child abduction, which has blighted Haiti for years. Even before the 7.0 earthquake struck on January 12, killing as many as 200,000, around 2,000 youngsters were believed to be being taken from the streets each year.

Aid groups say 500,000 children have either been made homeless or are in orphanages following the quake, and that rumours of child trafficking are circulating. In response, Haiti’s government has imposed strict controls on adoptions amid fears traffickers could exploit the current chaos.
Although hundreds of children have been flown to the U.S. to meet new parents, most were already in the process of being adopted before the disaster.

The 33 children, aged between 2 months to 12 years, have been taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, which is trying to find their parents or close relatives.

A spokesman said: ‘One child, an eight-year-old, said she thought she was going to some sort of summer camp in the Dominican Republic.

'She was crying, and saying, "I am not an orphan. I still have my parents".'

Yves Cristalin, Haiti’s social affairs minister, said: ‘This is totally illegal. It is an abduction, not an adoption. What is important is that a child needs to have authorisation to leave the country.’

Deb Barry, a protection expert at Save the Children, which wants a moratorium on new adoptions said: 'The instinct to swoop in and rescue children may be a natural impulse but it cannot be the solution for the tens of thousands of children left vulnerable by the Haiti earthquake.'

'The possibility of a child being scooped up and mistakenly labelled an orphan in the chaotic aftermath of the disaster is incredibly high.'
But Laura Silsby, the group’s leader, insisted that they had done nothing wrong.

At a police station next to the airport in the capital Port-au-Prince, she said: ‘We came here to help and we know God will reveal the truth.

‘I was going to come back and do the paperwork. They accuse us of children trafficking. This is something I would never do. We were not trying to do something wrong - we had permission from the Dominican Republic government to bring the children to an orphanage we have there.

‘We have a Baptist minister here in Port-au-Prince whose orphanage totally collapsed and he asked us to take the children.’

Sean Lankford, whose wife and daughter are among those arrested, said the group had rented hotel rooms to house the children until an orphanage could be built.

‘It really is shocking because it really is a rescue mission for these children,’ he added.

‘They’re really hoping to save their lives.’
The charity is buying land to build a home for up to 150 orphans and provide a place for adoptive parents who want to take the children back to the U.S, he said.

Clint Henry, pastor of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, which founded the group, said: ‘I know that there has been illegal activity down there and it’s unfortunate that we would be associated with that.

‘I don’t know what to say but God is in control and he’s got it figured out and we’re trusting him. It probably comes down to paperwork and we believed that we had done everything we needed to do.’

Max Beauvoir, head of Haiti's Voodoo Priest's Association, which represents thousands of priests and priestesses, said: 'There are many who come here with religious ideas that belong more in the time of the inquisition.

'These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves. We need compassion, not proselytising now, and we need aid - not just aid going to people of the Christian faith.'

Two-thirds of Haiti's 9 million population are said to practice Voodoo, a melange of beliefs from parts of west Africa and Catholicism.

A Haitian judge is expected to hear the case today to decide whether to bring charges against the group.

Relief workers in Haiti have begun to hand out women-only food coupons to ensure the most vulnerable receive aid supplies.

They said young men often force their way to the front of queues and even overpower women and children to get the best aid.

The UN World Food Program coupons can be exchanged at 16 sites and give a family 25kg (55lbs) of rice, which lasts a fortnight.











Held: The group of missionaries insist they have done nothing wrong, despite having no paperwork allowing them to take the children out of the country

 Questioned: Three of the women arrested for alleged child trafficking answer questions at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince


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Held: Looters are detained at an electric appliance shop in Port-au-Prince. One man was shot dead

 Arrested: More than 50 people looted an electrical appliance shop here on Friday. U.S. soldiers and Haiti policemen detained them after a gun battle



.
Desperate: A crowd gathers hoping to receive food distributed by U.S. Army 82nd Airborne soldiers in the Cite Soleil neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince yesterday

Abducted? Some of the children suspected to have been taken by the charity

Arrested: Eight of the accused, including leader Laura Silsby, second from right, at police headquarters in Port-au-Prince

In ruins: A man balances a coffin on his head in Port-au-Prince as he passes a collapsed building

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Skeletal and terrified: British yacht couple reveal cruelty of their Somali pirate captors

Her face is gaunt and drawn, her frame skeletal and weak.

The shocking effects of captivity are all too clear in this picture of Rachel Chandler, who has been held by Somali pirates for the last three months.

The image was taken by a French news agency that was allowed to accompany a doctor who examined Mrs Chandler and her husband Paul, who are being held separately.

The strain on 56-year-old Mrs Chandler’s face is clearly visible as she sits with her dress hanging loosely from her thin shoulders.

Yesterday she renewed her plea for urgent help, saying: ‘We have not much time left and are being badly treated. Please help us – these people are not treating us well.’

She went on: ‘I’m old, I’m 56, and my husband is 60 years old. We need to be together because we have not much time left. These people are treating us so cruelly.’

This is only the second time Mrs Chandler, an economist, has been seen since she and her husband were kidnapped in October at gunpoint as they sailed in their yacht towards Tanzania.

The last time was in November, when a video taken by the kidnappers – who are demanding a £1.9million ransom – was shown on Channel 4.
They have made other pleas for help in desperate phone calls, most recently on January 21, but the physical deterioration in yesterday’s new images are clear.

The Somalian doctor who examined Mrs Chandler said she was suffering a heavy ‘mental’ toll as well, which was manifested in ‘insomnia’.

Surgeon Mohamed Helmi Hangul, who spent three weeks securing permission to visit the couple, said: 'She's very confused, she's always asking about her husband - "Where's my husband, where's my husband?" - and she seems completely disorientated.'

'If I was with my husband I would feel a lot better,' Mrs Chandler told the medic.

'It's because I am not with my husband that I am feeling so lonely and desperate and finding it difficult to sleep.

'I need to be with Paul. We are husband and wife. We have always been together and we look after one another.'Mr Chandler also appeared gaunt in the video taken last Thursday but released last night.

His ribs could be seen as he lifted his shirt to be checked by the doctor, who reported he had a cough and a fever.

In the video, filmed by the AFP photographer, Mr Chandler, a retired quantity surveyor, called on the British Government to intervene.

'I just want to say please to my government, get me and my wife out of here. We are innocent we have done nothing wrong.
We have no money and can’t pay a ransom. We just need the Government to help, anyone who can get us out of here.

‘Day after day and this is 98 days of solitary confinement, no exercise. I don’t know what to do.’

Mr Chandler finally pleaded: ‘Will somebody please help? The government or somebody else.’
Dr Hangul added he had not been allowed to bring any drugs with him but left a prescription-with the pirates.

‘I gave them some advice and told them, “Your hostages can die. All you want is money so treat them well, let them reunite”,’ he said.

Mrs Chandler’s brother, Stephen Collett, was too distressed to comment last night.

A family friend said: ‘This is a highly distressing time for the family. They know the stakes are high and they are in an impossible position.

'The pirates want an unaffordable ransom and the Government won’t pay it.’

There has been sporadic communication with the Chandlers since they were captured, although this was the first time a journalist had been able to meet them.
Eleven days ago Mr Chandler spoke to ITV news, explaining their captives had ‘set a deadline of three or four days’, after which they expected to them to ‘kill us and abandon us in the desert’.

In a separate call, Mrs Chandler said she had been hit with an object she believed was a gun.

A gang member told the Daily Mail last month that the couple, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, would be shot by the end of February if they were not paid a $3million ransom.

The Chandlers are being held in rugged areas between the coastal village of Elhur and the small inland town of Amara but are moved every 48 hours.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has already insisted the Government will not become involved in any ransom payments.

A Foreign Office spokesman last night said: ‘We are doing everything we can to help secure their release.

'We remain in regular contact with the family and are providing support. We call for the safe and swift release of Paul and Rachel.'


How events unfolded after the Chandlers were captured aboard their yacht

One of the Somali pirate crews that operate off the country's coast and regularly attack shipping. This particular group seized 29 ships in 2008 and earned £6million in ransom money

Mr Chandler is examined by the doctor who visited with the video journalist: He and his wife are being held in separate locations in rugged countryside between the coastal village of Elhur and the small town of Amara

Mr Chandler, 60, pleaded for help and said conditions they were being held in were 'difficult'

Mrs Chandler being examined by the Somali doctor Abdi Mohamed Helmi.Disorientated: Rachel Chandler looked frail and weak in the video footage. She and her husband have been held for three months

With guns pointed at their backs, Paul and Rachel Chandler are forced to beg for mercy in a video released by their Somali kidnappers three months ago

The Chandlers looking healthy in Kerala, India - the couple were on a round-the-world trip when captured by pirates

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Teenage girl who survived on just bath water is pulled alive from Haiti rubble after FIFTEEN DAYS

People walk through the former Petionville golf course which has been turned into a makeshift camp

A sign written by displaced Haitians entreating for help is seen January 27, 2010 in Port-au-Prince

An aerial view shows one of the many tent cities seen in Port-au-Prince. Aid agencies have had great trouble reaching many of the homeless

A holds up a US flag at the former Petionville golf course which has been turned into a makeshift camp in Port-au-Prince

A U.S. Army soldier operated earth moving machinery as he helps clear central Port-au-Prince. According to reports approximately 250,000 structures have at least partially collapsed from the earthquake

The earthquake-damaged remains of the National Cathedral are seen in central Port-au-Prince

French medics carry a girl who was found alive in the rubble at the French hospital in Port-au-Prince

Saved: A French search and rescue team gestures after locating Darlene from the rubble. The official search for survivors was called off days ago

Survivor: Darlene Etienne, 17, was pulled alive from the rubble of a house in Port-au-Prince 15 days after the devastating earthquake

Exhausted but jubilant: Members of the French search and rescue team react after pulling Darlene from a building alive

French Ambassador Didier le Bret praised the rescue team, which has kept looking for survivors for days after the Haitian government officially called off the search

Safe at last: French Search and Rescue workers pull out Darlene Etienne from a building in Port-au-Prince

A policeman trys to control a crowd of Haitians at an aid distribution point in Port-au-Prince

Dead: Ann Barnes, 59, was on the second floor of a building when the powerful earthquake struck

A teenage girl was pulled alive from the rubble in Port-au-Prince, 15 days after the Haitian earthquake.

Darlene Etienne, 17, was just moments from death when she was save by French rescue workers from of a home near the destroyed St. Gerard University.

The teenagers was rushed to a French military field hospital and then to the French military hospital ship Sirroco, suffering from severe dehydration and a broken left leg.
She's alive!' said paramedic Paul Francois-Valette, who accompanied her into the hospital.

Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water, little alone more than two weeks.

But Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the collapsed home, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.

Her family said Etienne had just started studying when the disaster struck, trapping dozens of students and staff in the rubble of school buildings, hostels and nearby homes.

'We thought she was dead,' her cousin, Jocelyn A. St. Jules, said in a telephone call.

Then - half a month after the earthquake - neighbours on Wednesday heard a voice weakly calling from the rubble of a private home down the road from the collapsed university.

They called authorities, who brought in the French civil response team.
Rescuer Claude Fuilla then walked along the dangerously crumbled roof, heard her voice and saw a little bit of dust-covered black hair in the rubble. Clearing away some debris, he managed to reach the young woman and see she was alive - barely.

'She couldn't really talk to us or say how long she'd been there but I think she'd been there since the earthquake. I don't think she could have survived even a few more hours,' Fuilla said.

Digging out a hole big enough to give her oxygen and water, they found she had a very weak pulse.

Within 45 minutes they managed to remove her, covered in dust.

Fuilla said she was rescued from what appeared to be the porch area of the house, but a neighbour said he believed it was the shower room, where she might have had access to water.

'It's exceptional. She spoke to us in a very little voice, she was extremely weak,' Fuilla said.

'Before we stabilised her she was extremely dehydrated and weak she had a very low blood pressure.'

Another rescuer, French Lt. Col. Christophe Renou, said he had no idea how she had managed to cling to life for so long: 'Definitely she's been here for 15 days. She wasn't hurt but she was very, very weak.'

Renou said his team would probably return today with radar equipment to look for any other possible survivors.

French Ambassador Didier le Bret praised the persistence of the French rescue team, which has kept looking for survivors for days after the Haitian government officially called off the search.

'They are so stubborn because they should not have been working anymore because, officially, the rescue phase is over.

'But they felt that some lives still are to be saved, so we did not say that they should leave the country,' he said.

'To be honest we thought that the last miracle we had a couple of days ago ... would be the last miracle because the chances are so very, very slight.

'But it seems that beyond the miracle, there was another miracle.'

The last previous confirmed rescue of someone trapped by the initial quake occurred Saturday, 11 days later, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store.
A man pulled from the rubble of a shop on Tuesday and treated by the U.S. military for severe dehydration and a broken leg said he had been trapped during an aftershock.

At least 135 people have been unearthed by rescue teams since the quake on January 12.

Yesterday the Foreign Office confirmed that a second Briton had been killed in the disaster.
Ann Barnes, 59, originally from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, is believed to have been on the second floor of a building when the 7.0 magnitude tremor struck.

United Nations worker Frederick Wooldridge, 41, from Kent, was the first Briton to be confirmed dead after perishing with dozens of his colleagues.

Ms Barnes had no children and was not married but had a French partner on the island.

She was a personal assistant to the UN police commissioner and had worked for the UN for more than 20 years.

Her cousin, Christine Hart, 69, from Hornchurch, Essex, said she had refused to give up hope.

'The United Nations confirmed that the body is Ann, it is the news we feared most.'

She added: 'There is nothing I can say, her sister wants to be quiet about things too.'

Ms Barnes was thought to be in the second floor of the United Nations building when it collapsed.

Her partner Bruno has been clawing through the rubble with his bare hands since she vanished.

Mrs Hart added: 'He hasn't left the site. He went home to see what had happened to their house. The house was gone, but he got their dog.'Meanwhile, food from the world's aid agencies still isn't getting to enough hungry Haitians.

The newly homeless of the rubble-strewn Bizoton slum say they haven't gotten food, water or help with shelter in the two weeks since the earthquake.

'If it rains now, that's it,' Wilson St. Ellis, 50, a father of eight, said yesterday amid plastic sheets stretched here and there as flimsy shields against the elements.

Where donated rice, beans or ready-to-eat meals are being distributed, crowds quickly become unruly, with young men pushing ahead and grabbing food bags from women and the weak.

UN peacekeepers fire pepper spray and Haitian police swing sticks to restore control.

'These people are just hungry,' UN spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese said of the thousands thronging food distribution points, where he said UN peacekeepers were reinforcing security.

Food remains scarce for many of the neediest survivors despite the efforts of the United Nations, the U.S. military and dozens of international aid groups.
Relief experts say the scale of this disaster and Haiti's poor infrastructure are presenting unprecedented challenges, but Haitian leaders complain coordination has been poor.

'Many mistakes have to be rectified in order to bring help to the people who need it,' President Rene Preval complained to reporters.

In a bid to improve food distribution, representatives of the UN, the US, the Haitian government and private aid groups met on Wednesday.

Afterwards Donal Reilly of Catholic Relief Services said they decided to divide Port-au-Prince into zones, designating a major aid agency to be responsible for delivering UN food to each sector.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) says it has reached 450,000 people, but it urgently appealed to governments for more cash for Haiti supplies - £500 million to feed 2 million people through until December - more than quadruple the £100 million already pledged.

The food agency says rising tensions and security incidents - 'including people rushing distribution points for food' - have hampered deliveries.
But since the massive relief effort's first days, other problems have also delayed aid - blocked and congested roads, shortages of trucks, a crippled seaport and an overloaded Port-au-Prince airport.

'The unblocking of the logistical bottlenecks is an absolute priority,' the European Commission said, describing a seven-day backlog of 1,000 relief flights seeking permission to land at the single-runway airport.

The senior US officer in Haiti said Haitian families simply cannot rely on any particular location for rations.

Food is 'flooding' into the city, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen told reporters, 'but it's being delivered pretty much in terms of where we can get to and where we can distribute it,' not always in locations that are 'sustained every day.'

At some regular distribution points, such as near the Champs de Mars, the central plaza where thousands of homeless are living, daily food handouts have drawn crowds of frantic people. Desperation boiled over earlier this week and Uruguayan peacekeepers retreated as young men rushed forward to grab US-donated bags of beans and rice.

A pregnant woman collapsed and was trampled.

Elsewhere as well, the strong have preyed on the weak, prying donated food from their arms.

'These things should be done is a systematic way, not a random way,' said Dr. Eddy Delalue, who runs a Haitian relief group, Operation Hope.

'It's survival of the fittest: The strongest guy gets it.'

At one squatter settlement Julia Jean-Francois, 25, clutching a grocery bag filled with small packets of donated water, told of her encounter with food robbers.

'I lost all the rice, beans and oil that were distributed last week. A group of young men shoved me and grabbed the bags and ran away,' said Jean-Francois, whose mother was killed in the quake.

An hour later, she said, one of the men returned and offered to sell her the same food for the equivalent of £12.

She refused, relying instead on a communal kitchen she formed with homeless neighbours.
She said Haitian police patrolling nearby did nothing while people were robbed. 'We complained, and they got into their truck and left,' she said.

As she spoke, a gang of youths pushed into a queue of people waiting for water, shoving an elderly woman, who screamed and swung her bucket at their heads.

Port-au-Prince street vendors can be seen openly selling US-donated rice by the cupful from bags marked 'not for resale.'

Fears of official corruption surrounding the food aid also are surfacing.

Paul Coroleuski of the US-based Convoy of Hope, which has distributed aid in Haiti for three years, said he has more than 100 tons of food in a Port-au-Prince warehouse ready to hand out, but it has been delayed for days by Haitian officials who say they will take over distribution.

Private agencies like his worry that Haitian officials 'will do what they always have done, which is the government takes care of the government and the people are secondary,' he said.

Haitian officials denied the government plans to take over food distribution from private agencies.

Coroleuski's frustration and distrust of the government is echoed in Port-au-Prince's streets.

'If they turn it over to the Haitian government, they would take it all for themselves,' said Muller Bellegarde, 30, as he waited for food in the unrelenting tropical sun.

Haitians remember that when the government took charge of delivering international aid to the city of Gonaives after deadly hurricane floods in 2008, much of it ended up sold on the black market.

Man Pulled Alive From Haiti Rubble 14 Days After Quake

An Israeli search team carries Emmannuel Buso, 21, who was pulled from the rubble alive after being trapped for 10 days in Port-au-Prince.

 

United Nations soldiers from Uruguay hold the crowd back during a food distribution in Port-au-Prince.

 

 People wait in line to enter the Unibank in Port-au-Prince.

 

Rico Dibrivell is helped by U.S. Army soldiers from the 82nd Airborne after he was found in the ruins in Port-au-Prince.

 

John Hannon of Foxboro, Mass., a member of the MA1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, holds a child who was injured in Haiti.


A crowd of Haitian looters called for help from U.S. soldiers on Tuesday after finding a man buried in the rubble of a building that had been repeatedly scavenged since the devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince two weeks ago.

A witness told Reuters the man, covered in dust and wearing only underwear, was rescued by soldiers from the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division at a ruined building on Rue de Miracle in downtown Port-au-Prince.

The Americans treated Rico Dibrivell, 35, for a broken leg and severe dehydration. Dibrivell said he had been trapped under the building since the Jan. 12 quake.

The military provided no details about how he managed to survive, saying only in a statement late Tuesday that Dibrivell's family said he had been missing for two weeks.

"He got sent to the hospital. He’s going to make it," Specialist Andrew Pourak, one of the rescuers, said.

More than 100 people have been unearthed by rescue teams since the quake, and many more by their neighbors, but most of those were in the immediate aftermath and authorities say it is unlikely for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water. On Saturday, an international team of rescuers unearthed a shop clerk who they believed had been buried since the earthquake.

Hundreds of thousands of other hungry and thirsty children are scattered among Port-au-Prince's squatter camps of survivors, without protection against disease or child predators — often with nobody to care for them.

"There's an estimated 1 million unaccompanied or orphaned children or children who lost one parent," said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for the aid group Save the Children. "They are extremely vulnerable."

The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, has established a special tent camp for girls and boys separated from their parents in the Jan. 12 quake, and who are in danger of falling prey to child traffickers and other abusers. The Connecticut-based Save the Children has set up "Child Spaces" in 13 makeshift settlements. The Red Cross and other groups are working to reunite families and get children into orphanages.


The post-quake needs of Haiti's children have outrun available help. Some youngsters have been released from hospitals with no one to care for them — there just aren't enough beds.

"Health workers are being advised to monitor and send separated/unaccompanied children to child-friendly spaces," the U.N. humanitarian office said in its latest situation report.

The plight of the young is poignant even in a country where the U.N. estimates a third of the 9 million population needs international assistance in the quake's aftermath. "We still have a huge distance to go," said John Holmes, the U.N. relief coordinator.

That was evident in Port-au-Prince's streets, alleys and crumbled doorways, where handwritten messages begged for help. In the Juvenat neighborhood, a group of 50 families hung a white sheet from a doorway, with this plea scrawled in green: "We need food assistance, water and medicine."

It was evident, too, among the thousands pressing against Haitian police at a food-distribution site in the Cite Soleil slum. They swung sticks to beat back the crowd.

Brazilian troops in armored personnel carriers controlled a tightly packed line of earthquake survivors waiting for food in the broiling sun by firing pepper spray and training their guns on the jostling, rowdy crowd. The line stretched between the partially collapsed National Palace and entirely destroyed Supreme Court.

One soldier loaded a shotgun and returned their taunts by shouting back insults in Creole. Some were offended, others amused at hearing a Brazilian trooper insulting them in their own language.

"They treat us like animals, they beat us but we are hungry people," said Muller Bellegarde, 30.

Several left without getting food, fearful of the pepper spray, the soldiers, and thugs who were grabbing food from receivers.

Many said they appreciate the international response and under no circumstances want the Haitian government to handle aid deliveries, but suggested Haitian churches could provide more orderly and respectful venues for distributions, with Haitian communities organizing security.

"The help is good but the way they're doing it is bad. This is anarchy," Thomas Louis, 40, trying to get rice and oil for his two babies, aged 2 and six months. "This is not aid. This is a way to put people down."

The monumental scale of the Haiti disaster — perhaps 200,000 dead, a capital city on its knees — has severely strained the world's ability to get relief supplies through Port-au-Prince's overloaded airport and crippled seaport.

Some 800 to 1,000 aid flights were still awaiting permission to land, a seven-day backlog, U.N. and European officials reported Tuesday. On top of that, "trucks are needed," U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva — especially small trucks because "the streets are extremely congested."

The U.N.'s Holmes estimated that 2 million people need food, but only 500,000 have received some so far.

The medical picture has improved, but remains critical. World Health Organization spokesman Paul Garwood said more medical staff is needed, especially rehabilitation specialists, to help with postoperative recovery of 200,000 people who have had amputations or other surgery.

Haitians and volunteers from dozens of countries, working around the clock, were still performing up to 100 amputations a day in some hospitals.

At the General Hospital, Price strode from tent to tent checking on the 81 children under his care. Staff interrupted the tall, balding pediatrician with a string of questions: "Do you know about this baby?" "Where's the medication?" "Where will we sleep tonight?"

Of the nameless, speechless trio, he was treating young Joe for an infection oozing from both eyes. The 7-pound (3-kilogram) Baby Sebastian, in a white diaper decorated with sheep, had diarrhea. The unnamed girl, about 10, lay listlessly and stared upward. She had an eye infection, but would soon be picked up by an orphanage, Price said.

With no clues to their past, Price could only wonder.

"Maybe some of these parents are not even looking because their house was destroyed and they might think the kid was inside," he said. "But maybe the kid was pulled out, so they are missing each other."

Children left alone are everywhere. At one of the 13 Save the Children sites, about 25 children have no adult relatives taking care of them, Conradt said. She said the group has helped some 6,000 children since the quake.

The aid group's "Child Spaces" are cordoned-off areas where children can play under supervision," run around being children, giving them a chance to return to normalcy as much as they can."

Such areas also protect children against the potential for abduction by child traffickers, a chronic problem in pre-quake Haiti, where thousands were handed over to other families into lives of domestic servitude, said Deb Barry, an emergency protection adviser with Save the Children.

She said her organization was working to track down every rumor it hears about threats to stranded children, "but we haven't been able to verify those thus far."

In Geneva, a UNICEF spokeswoman, Veronique Taveau, said the organization had been told of children disappearing from hospitals. "It's difficult to establish the reality," she said, but added that UNICEF has strengthened security at hospitals and orphanages.

Save the Children, the Red Cross and other organizations, meanwhile, are trying to establish a joint database of information to try to reunite separated families.

Government spokeswoman Marie Laurence Jocelyn-Lassegue, the communications minister, said Tuesday that Haitian officials have temporarily halted new adoptions because of concerns about corruption and carelessness in the system.

"Some children we don't know if the parents are alive or not," Jocelyn-Lassegue said.


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Lines and Tempers as Haitians Queue for Cash-No respite for Haiti amid fresh aftershocks

Customers waited in line outside a local money transfer office in Port-au-Prince on Monday.


Haitian authorities are struggling to stop the looting in Port-au-Prince


World rallies round earthquake victims



A million were left homeless by the devastating earthquake

Quake trauma sees mothers' milk run dry.



The death toll has risen to 150,000


Thousands of Haitians lined up at money transfer offices here on Tuesday, crowding windows and arguing with the police as they waited as long as 10 hours to collect small cash infusions wired from relatives abroad.

Haitian government officials said they were still trying to determine how much money was pouring in, but after two weeks without remittances because of the earthquake, there appeared to be a significant spike, which they welcomed.

“In Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York, Haitian Americans are helping with their money and their time,” said Elisabeth Delatour Préval, Haiti’s first lady. “They are shocked with what has happened to us.”

Even without an earthquake, two weeks without money from abroad would push many families closer to destitution. Only a small minority in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, have enough money for a bank account. And since the 1990s, the Haitian economy has turned increasingly reliant on cash wire transfers sent to relatives by the one to two million Haitians who have left for the United States, the Dominican Republic and other countries.

The World Bank has estimated that remittances make up as much as 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, triple the level as in 1998, and more than twice the earnings from exports.

Each year, Haitians abroad send back more than $1.5 billion, and in small amounts: most families receive about $150 a month, according to one World Bank report.

The money is usually used for basic necessities, and in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake on Jan. 12, the need has increased along with the wait times and the tension.

There simply are not enough open offices. Although some companies have relaxed identification rules to expedite the process, limited electricity and access to cash, along with collapsed buildings, have kept most offices from reopening. MoneyGram International said 40 of its 130 money-transfer agents had reopened, but only 8 of those were in or around Port-au-Prince.

The results have been crowds and complaints.

At a C.A.M. money transfer office in the city’s Nazon section on Tuesday afternoon, at least 300 people, in two lines running in opposite directions on a busy street, shoved, shouted and tried to stay patient.

Natasha George, 29, said she had been there since 3 a.m. waiting for money from her brother, who works at a money transfer office in New York. She had no idea how much cash was coming, but she knew it would not be enough: it had to be shared among her family of eight.

Bernadette Norbrum, 38, stood on the opposite line, shifting from foot to foot, and looking angry. She said she had come from a neighborhood on the city’s edge, arriving in the dark at 4 a.m. She still had a long way to go — about 50 people stood in front of her. And when the police walked someone closer to the door, she shouted in outrage, tossing her hands in the air. “They’re just helping their friends and family,” she said. “Or maybe they’re getting paid.”

With each passing minute, she became more anxious. She was waiting for $70 from a sister in Miami, whose 18-year-old daughter was in a local hospital, awaiting a prescription. Ms. Norbrum said she had already seen another sister die after the earthquake because she did not have money for treatment.

“The problem is, I lost someone already because I couldn’t get her medication,” Ms. Norbrum said. “Now I might lose another because of the delay.”

Throughout the line in Nazon, and others throughout the city, the demands and frustration have been expanding ever since the first money transfer offices reopened a few days ago.

At another C.A.M. office on Monday, there were hundreds of people jockeying to get inside, as Haitian police officers walked a select few to the front. The crowd roared with outrage, to no avail, and those who exited brought forth another complaint. They said the transfer company was charging them a “disaster fee” of 10 percent.

“They are stealing from us and I need it badly,” said Louise Patricia Saint Rose, in her third day of waiting in line for money from her husband in New Jersey. “My daughter was injured. We’re sleeping in the street — I need to buy water and food.”

Elsewhere, the long lines held women with bandaged legs, wincing in pain; Haitians of all ages squeezed together from surging crowds behind them and mothers praying that their sons had sent $100 not $40.

Many were dealing with both personal and economic loss. At a Western Union office on the airport road, Chlony Jean, 33, a taxi driver who twirled his beard and spoke slowly like a philosopher, said he had not worked in 15 days because his company’s employees were all killed in the earthquake. He escaped unharmed, but his daughter did not. She was only 11, named Daeshley, and she died when her school collapsed. Mr. Jean looked away. That was all he could say about her.

“It’s just to buy food,” he said of the money he planned to collect. “It’s for the basic things.”

No respite for Haiti amid fresh aftershocks

Two new aftershocks rattled weary Haitians on Tuesday, as top US officials defended the huge American military-led aid operation from criticisms of being too heavy-handed.
"We just can't get used to these quakes. Each aftershock is terrifying and everyone is afraid," trader Edison Constant said after the aftershocks struck in quick succession around dawn, two weeks after the quake.
"I hid under my bed," added iron merchant Julien Louis, exhausted by a stream of some 50 aftershocks since the devastating 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12.
The US Geological Survey, which warned the Caribbean nation could be feeling aftershocks for the next 30 days, measured the second tremor at 4.4.
But for the traumatized people left homeless, hungry and destitute each new quake is a fresh reminder of the terrifying minute two weeks ago when the earth shook, destroying their lives.
Haitian leaders say the earthquake killed 150,000 people and left a million homeless with hundreds of thousands now dependent on handouts from a massive aid relief operation and living in makeshift camps.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the US operation in Haiti from criticisms that it lacked leadership and had been too heavy-handed in the immediate chaotic aftermath of the quake.
"I deeply resent those who attack our country, the generosity of our people and the leadership of our president in trying to respond to historically disastrous conditions after the earthquake," Clinton said.
Some 20,000 US troops have been sent to Haiti to help distribute food and water. They took over control of the damaged airport, but many have remained stationed on offshore ships, including a floating hospital which has been treating scores of injured.
The United States needed to send both troops and civilians "to deliver aid to the Haitians who desperately needed it," Clinton said. "We're scrambling as quick as we could to do everything we needed in the past two weeks."
Leftist Latin American allies Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba have criticized the United States for its response, accusing US forces of occupying the country rather than helping its people.
A senior Italian official separately deplored a lack of a coordinated international aid effort in Haiti, saying the United States had "too many officers" there and could not find a capable leader.
The international relief effort has indeed struggled to get enough aid into the capital Port-au-Prince and out towards flattened towns near the quake's epicenter, stoking security fears.
Looters were out early Tuesday in the capital's commercial center and appeared to be more organized than in past days, sharing out the tasks of digging through the rubble, equipped with wagons and sledgehammers. Related article: NGO rushes to aid Haiti handicapped
Donor nations and aid organizations have warned rebuilding the impoverished country will take at least a decade.
"Right now, the needs of the people are survival and immediate recovery," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Next comes the phase of long-term reconstruction, he told foreign media in Tokyo. "This is going to be more than 10 years of efforts."
And Haitians, who lived with decades of political upheaval and bloodshed, remain fearful that the new-found international interest in their plight could soon fade.
"The West has come to help us. It is extraordinary, but it will not last," said Andre Muscadin, an evangelical pastor. "Rather than give us a fish, teach us to catch fish."
Donor countries have agreed to hold a full conference on aid to Haiti at the UN headquarters in New York in March.
Haiti's President Rene Preval urged the world to urgently airlift 200,000 more tents and 36 million ready-to-eat packs before the rainy season starts in May.
Aid organizations fear disease could spread like wildfire if thousands are still living in tent cities when the rains come.

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