UN aid point in Haiti hit by coupon scam

9 Feb 2010, 11:25 pm   -   Source: AAP
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UN officials scrambled to resume aid distribution to some 10,000 quake survivors after halting handouts when fake coupons were discovered.

UN officials scrambled to resume aid distribution to some 10,000 quake survivors after halting handouts when fake coupons were discovered.

An agitated crowd of around 100 people continued to wait hours after officials stopped handing out sacks of rice at a food distribution site near the town hall in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville.

"We need food!" one old lady shouted at a guard manning the steel bars blocking the entrance to the town hall offices.

Others simply pointed to their mouths and stomachs.

The United Nations agency has set up 16 food distribution points across the city, handing out 25-kilogram sacks of rice designed to feed a family for two weeks.

UN World Food Program (WFP) spokesman David Orr said that officials hope to restart the distribution at the Petionville site on Tuesday.

The suspension affected some 10,000 survivors of the massive January 12 earthquake that killed over 212,000 people and left an estimated one million people homeless.

The situation remains dire in this Caribbean country of around 10 million almost one month after the disaster, as disease breaks out in squalid makeshift camps and the massive aid effort struggles to house people before the arrival of seasonal rains.

President Rene Preval will be the main guest on Tuesday at the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) meeting in Quito, where South American presidents will meet to discuss aid to his earthquake-devastated Caribbean country.

In Ecuador, Preval is prepared to "present the needs and priorities of Haiti after the catastrophe," read a statement from his office.

The meeting was called by the current head of UNASUR's rotating presidency, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, who visited Port-au-Prince in late January to deliver humanitarian aid.

In Port-au-Prince, Laura Silsby, the leader of the 10 American missionaries arrested at the Dominican border for trying to smuggle out a busload of children, appeared in court Monday to answer kidnapping charges.

"I am trusting God to reveal all truths and that we will be released and exonerated of charges, and we are just waiting for the Haitian legal process to complete," Silsby said.

"It went very well," she told reporters as she left the hearing and was taken back to the police station where she and her colleagues from the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge are being held.

The other nine were expected to be heard on Tuesday.

The defendants, who acted with no authorisation, claim they simply wanted to give the children a better life in an orphanage they planned to set up in the Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbour on the island of Hispaniola.

But soon after their January 29 arrest it emerged that several of the 33 children were not orphans, although some of their parents have admitted they agreed to give away their kids.

A final decision from a Haitian judge is expected within three months after the proceedings are completed. The Americans face lengthy prison terms if convicted of child trafficking and criminal conspiracy.

The case has been criticised as a distraction from the international aid effort to bring Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Americas before the January 12 tremor, back on its feet.

At the central immigration bureau, hundreds of Haitians queued in line for a precious passport to leave. Others simply massed in front of the entrance.

An official directing the crowd with a bullhorn said only renewals would be handled due to overwhelming demand, and that those wanting a passport for the first time would have to come back next week.

A man waiting in front of the immigration office said he had been coming every day for about a week, hoping to join his parents in France. He said the destruction has left him seeking a better life for his family.

"Everybody's looking for a way to leave," said Jourdain Jean Nickson, 30.

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