Powerful Aftershock Hits Haiti
Haiti has been hit with a powerful new earthquake just over a week after the initial quake that killed tens of thousands of people. The latest earthquake hit just after 6:00 a.m. this morning, registering 6.1 on the Richter scale. Thousands of people were seen flooding the streets of Port-au-Prince, but it remains unclear what damage the new quake may have caused. The quake struck as the official death toll hit 70,000, but it’s widely estimated the actual toll could top 200,000 and even higher.


US Accused of Militarizing Relief Effort in Haiti
The U.S. military has taken control of the only airport in Port-au-Prince and is facing criticism for diverting some aid planes. Doctors Without Borders says five of its planes carrying surgical teams and equipment weren’t allowed to land and were diverted to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. US forces also turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital. Al Jazeera English aired this report on Sunday:

Al Jazeera: The most visible face of the international aid effort here in Port-au-Prince. Most Haitians here have seen little humanitarian aid so far. What they have seen is guns, and lots of them. Armored personnel carriers cruise the streets. UN soldiers aren’t here to help pull people out of the rubble; they’re here, they say, to enforce the law. This is what much of the UN presence actually looks like on the streets of Port-au-Prince: men in uniform, racing around in vehicles, carrying weapons.
At the entrance to the city’s airport, where most of the aid is coming in, there’s anger and frustration. Much needed supplies of water and food are inside. Haitians are locked out.

HAITIAN MAN: [translated] These weapons they bring, they are instruments of death. We don’t want them. We don’t need them. We are a traumatized people. What we want from the international community is technical help—action, not words.

Al Jazeera: And beyond the well guarded perimeter, there’s something else going on. Here, the United States has taken control. It looks more like the Green Zone in Baghdad than a center for aid distribution. Heavily armed US forces patrol the entrances. Even within the airport, these soldiers are never without weapons. There are several thousand on the ground already, and that number is expected to grow.

America now decides who lands in Haiti, and there’s a constant stream of US aircraft arriving with thousands of US boots on the ground. Meanwhile, aid flights from other nations are being turned back. Two Mexican aircraft with vital life-saving equipment were told they couldn’t land on Saturday.

PATRICK ELIE: But we don’t need soldiers, as such, you know? There’s no war here.

Al Jazeera: Patrice Ali is the former Haitian defense minister. He’s concerned with the way the Americans have taken over the relief efforts.

PATRICK ELIE: The choice of what lands and what doesn’t land should—you know, the priorities of the flight should be determined by the Haitians. So, otherwise, it’s a takeover. And what might happen is that the need of Haitians are not taken into account, but only either the way a foreign country defines the need of Haiti or try to push its own agenda.

Al Jazeera: While the aid operation arriving at the airport grows by the hour, bodies still rot in the streets, and Haitians continue to dig through rubble by themselves, wondering when the help they actually need will arrive.


Group: 20,000 Dying Daily from Lack of Surgery
Aid efforts have yet to approach meeting the dire humanitarian needs. In a statement, the medical relief group Partners in Health said some 20,000 people are dying each day who could be saved by surgery. The World Food Program says it’s handed out more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations amidst estimates some three million people are in need. The agency says it needs to hand out 100 million food rations in the next month, but is on pace to only have 16 million available. Earthquake survivors continue to receive medical care in makeshift clinics around Haiti. In a video, Doctors Without Borders anesthetist Deane Marchbein described the magnitude of the amputations being performed.

Deane Marchbein: “I imagine that not since the Crimean War have surgeons seen and amputated so many limbs. Perhaps the Civil War in the United States. But we’re talking about a situation that I’ve certainly never seen in my experience.”


Aid Begins Reaching Quake Epicenter
The foreign military presence continues to rise in Haiti. On Tuesday, hundreds of new US troops arrived in Port-au-Prince, bringing the total US contingent to upwards of 11,000. On Tuesday, desperately needed aid began reaching residents of Léogâne, the epicenter of last week’s earthquake. Earthquake survivors flocked around marines handing out supplies from a helicopter.

Staff Sgt. Causeley Barthold: “We’re trying to help these people out, as far as food and water and all supply that they—medical supply that they need. They’re all complaining that, you know, all their houses—they’re right now living out on the street. They’ve got no water, no food.”


Haitian Feminist Leader Myriam Merlet (1953-2010)

Haitian feminist leader Miriam Merlet (1953-2010)

One of the victims of Haiti’s quake is Haitian political activist Myriam Merlet. She died under the rubble of her home after it collapsed on her last week. Merlet was the chief of staff for the Haitian Ministry of Women and an outspoken feminist who helped draw international attention to the use of rape as a political weapon.


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