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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 16.06.2004 |
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| Substantial Financial Assistance Needed for Haiti’s Flood Victims |
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Environmental Disaster Leaves Population, Authorities Powerless
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti/GENEVA, 16 June 2004 (LWI) – Substantial financial assistance is needed to enable populations affected by recent flooding in Haiti to “lead a halfway normal life again,” says Michael Kuehn, representative of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Haiti.
The number of victims following the severe storms in the southern border area of Haiti and the Dominican Republic is still rising, says Kuehn, director of the LWF Department for World Service (DWS) programs in both countries. The impact of heavy rainstorms has left a scene of desolation. Most of the affected come from around Mapou, some 40 km southeast of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, which resembles a desert of mud and debris, Kuehn says. The official death toll has already reached 2,000 and another 1,600 people are reported missing, according to the health ministry’s Civil Protection Department.
Kuehn points out that the country has been experiencing an increasingly worsening political situation since the beginning of the year. The heavy rainfall and mudslides for over three weeks since mid-May, he says, have created an environmental disaster over which the Haitian population and authorities have no power.
The LWF/DWS Haiti is focusing on providing humanitarian help to survivors, who are cut off from the outside world in regions such as Mapou. “The immediate priority is to provide emergency food supplies to the victims,” Kuehn says. The flooding has destroyed roads and other access routes, so chartered aircraft and helicopters provided by the multinational task force stationed in Haiti since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February, are currently the only means by which to deliver these supplies.
By early this month the LWF, under considerable transportation constraint, had distributed over 5,000 gallons of water, 600 kilograms of rice and beans, 750 kilograms of corn, and provided clothing and medicine to 275 families. But Kuehn sees these efforts as “merely a drop in the ocean” in view of the scale of the disaster, even though the helicopters are still in operation.
The LWF Haiti program has received financial assistance from various sources, including the Geneva-based network of churches and aid agencies Action by Churches Together (ACT) International (USD 50,000), the German embassy in Haiti (USD 58,000) and German Agro Action (USD 23,200). In addition, Concern Worldwide is providing considerable logistical help, according to Kuehn.
(396 words)
(By Julia Fauth, youth trainee in the LWF Office for Communication Services.)
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