- "During the past three years, Haiti... has been
deprived of all access to international humanitarian assistance... the
US administration was responsible for the suspension of aid to Haiti."
-
- The crisis in Haiti has had a "devastating effect"
on the country's precarious health system, a leading aid expert says.
-
- "I am very concerned," Paul Farmer - a Harvard
academic who also runs a clinic in Haiti - told the BBC.
-
- The country has been in turmoil for five weeks, following
a rebellion that has forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile.
-
- The UN has appealed for $35m for Haiti, to avert a humanitarian
crisis.
-
- "During the past three years, Haiti... has been
deprived of all access to international humanitarian assistance,"
Mr Farmer told the World Today programme.
-
- Fear
-
- He said the US administration was responsible for the
suspension of aid to Haiti after the disputed 2000 election. "We have
all the paper trail on that," he said.
-
- Mr Farmer added that the situation had been "particularly
devastating" in the past month.
-
- Haiti's only medical school has been shut down and there
have been threats to health care workers in hospitals, he said.
-
- Mr Farmer is a professor at the Harvard Medical School
who for 20 years has run a clinic in a slum in central Haiti.
-
- "My own staff are frightened to go to work and also
patients are frightened of seeking care," he said.
-
- Last Friday, he went on, rebel soldiers stole two of
the clinic's vehicles. They returned on Wednesday, asking for more supplies.
-
- "What we said in response was - don't ask us for
things, give us our vehicle back," he said.
-
- Access
-
- Earlier in the week UN emergency relief coordinator Jan
Egeland said health and food are the two most immediate priorities in Haiti.
-
- He said the main problems were lack of resources, insecurity
and lack of access to parts of the country.
-
- France and the US have sent 2,500 troops to restore order.
-
- On Wednesday the country's new prime minister, Gerard
Latortue, called for national reconciliation and an end to the dictatorships
of the past.
-
- He was speaking after arriving back from exile.
-
- Mr Latortue, a former foreign minister and UN official,
was appointed to form a transition government and organise fresh elections.
-
- © BBC MMIV
-
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3501966.stm
|