A woman checks the toe tag on the body of a deceased earthquake victim in the parking lot of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital. UN Photo/Logan Abassi

There is no Olympics of tragedy nor is there value in engaging in comparative suffering. Nevertheless, if we were to look at the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, an exercise in triage is underway and the work is undone.

The Feb. 27 Chile earthquake registered 8.8 on the Richter scale and was the eighth largest in recorded history.

The January 12 earthquake in Haiti registered much lower, at 7.0 on the scale, yet the suffering, leave out the numbers, appears to never end. In Chile the government is totaling damage reports and checking the wine crop. In Haiti, international agencies face the rainy season, despair and misery.

The difference of course is development. Haiti needs building, more than rebuilding, rescue not just from the earthquake, but from a tragedy that spans generations – a mostly human-made disaster.

On the human dignity scale, Haiti ranks high. Every day, there’s a story about beauty and grace amid the ruins. There’s the story in the New York Times about Beken, the Haitian musician living in the ruins.

The Boston-based relief group, Partners in Health, is the subject of a video worth watching; it offers a look at how the rescuers are drawn close to the victims as they work to save lives.

The heart of the message is a blog by Lisa Armstrong for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, who says that for the rescuers in Haiti “there is no us and them, only we.”

Armstrong’s phrase is a good mantra for considering Haiti and the aftermath of what Haitians refer to simply as the catastrophe. She reminds us that the suffering cannot be forgotten and the rescue mission should be the responsibility of all governments and all people.

- Peter Eisner

Sonson with sunglasses. Photo: Tamara Palinkat

Worldfocus associate producer Mohammad Al-Kassim spent five days in the Haitian capital one month after the devastating earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean island. While he was at the University of Miami field hospital, he came across the story of Sonson, a young orphan.

Sonson is a Haitian boy who was found in a garbage dumpster two weeks after a calamitous earthquake hit his hometown of Port-au-Prince.

Salvation Army workers found Sonson and brought him to the University of Miami medical field hospital located near the airport in the Haitian capital. Doctors there treated Sonson for worms, bacteria, and superficial cuts on his foot. Despite the awful conditions he was found in, Sonson is in fairly good shape physically according to medical personnel.

No one seems to know the whereabouts of his parents or even his real age, which nurses at the hospital estimate  at about two or three. He is scheduled to undergo a hand x-ray soon to determine age by his bone development.

Sonson has a big following here; he’s especially popular with the ladies.

Tamara Palinkat, 38-year-old Canadian volunteer with the University of Miami’s Project Medishare, is in Port-au-Prince helping with the earthquake recovery efforts. She says that she took an immediate liking to Sonson, drawn to his survival instinct.

“The idea that this little fella was fending for himself at the age of 2 or 3 years old pulled at my heart strings,” said Tamara.

Tamara has no children of her own but says that she always knew that one day “a child would adopt me and that would be that.” She wants Sonson to be that child.

She has started the adoption paperwork process, registering Sonson as an unaccompanied child with UNICEF and making known her desire to adopt him. She also wrote a letter requesting approval from the Canadian Embassy.

Sonson feeds Tamara. Photo: Tamara Palinkat

Tamara is busy with her volunteer work but says she is spending as much time with Sonson as she can. Her face lights up when she talks about him.

According to Tamara, the little boy doesn’t have nightmares but does spend a lot of time lost in thought, staring in one direction for a long time as if reliving past events. Tamara says Sonson was very withdrawn at first but has slowly been coming out of his shell.

In the short time they have known each other, Sonson has become the center of Tamara’s world. She doesn’t know yet if her adoption bid for Sonson will be successful — for now, she is focusing on her volunteer work and staying hopeful.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

A boy in Cite Soleil carries water. Photo: UN on Flickr

Survivors of the Haitian earthquake need quick solutions that may not come in time for the punishing rainy season that starts in May. They now face the looming threat of disease, misery in makeshift tent camps and a lack of adequate food and water.

Despite all the pledges of rebuilding, there are some basic realities: poor people will suffer and some will die.

Reports from the field show that relief agencies are pushing to make things better, with a deadline from the weather that is almost impossible to meet. Partners in Health, one prominent relief organization, reports that it has to shift priorities “to long-term care and helping the hundreds of thousands of people who urgently need shelter, water, sanitation, and food.

We hear the same concerns from journalists and from relief organizations all around Haiti. The Miami Herald reported on Feb. 24:

The stench of human waste permeates the air around the crude shelters made of sticks and sheets…There are nowhere near enough toilets — portables, latrines or any other kind — for the tens of thousands living in the camps in and around Port-au-Prince.

The squalid conditions have government and relief workers worried about a potential outbreak of deadly diseases, such as diarrhea, spread by unsanitary conditions. And relief agencies scrambling to install toilets are still figuring out how to later dispose of their waste.

Sad to say, but as many people have noted all along, Haiti cannot be handled simply by relief and rescue through normal means. Haiti needs international concerted crisis management –- and Haitians must be empowered to choose the leaders who will allow real, humane, no-nonsense, incorruptible change. Is that happening?

Partners in Health reported this: “With cities destroyed and major roadways and ports obstructed or damaged, food is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. The price of staples, like rice, oil, and beans, has risen dramatically. ‘Prices have skyrocketed – doubling and in some cases tripling,’ says Jesula Pierre, a PIH logistics coordinator currently working in Haiti’s Central Plateau.”

With its Haitian partner, the organization is pushing to plant fallow farmland and ratchet up farm yields. But each organization operating in Haiti can only do a small part to save as many people as possible.
It’s not enough. The list of problems goes on.

This is also from the Miami Herald:

Relief workers blame the shortage of toilets in part on having to deal with more urgent problems — like keeping people alive — immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake…

But now, more than five weeks after the quake, the dangers of inadequate sanitation could amount to the most pressing public health issue.

At best, many Haitians had neither clean water or sanitation before the earthquake. They deserved help even before the earth shook.

Much more suffering is likely when the rains fall.

Closing ceremony of the Latin American and Caribbean Unity summit. Photo Miguel Romero/Presidencia de la República, Flickr user Presidencia de la República del Ecuador.

Latin American and Caribbean leaders are set to launch a regional group that will be an alternative to the U.S.-led Organization of American States.

More than 30 heads of state met on Monday, February 22, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, for the two-day Rio Group unity summit.

The group - that includes Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela - will discuss plans to launch the Latin American and Caribbean Community in 2011. All nations in the Americas will be represented, with the exception of both the U.S. and Canada, and the organization’s goal is to promote greater international cooperation.

The conference, however, has been overshadowed by the spat between Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. According to officials, Uribe urged Chávez to “Be a man!” and the Venezuelan president reacted and told Uribe to “Go to hell!”

The row - that has highlighted the lack of unity between some countries in Latin America - erupted when Uribe complained to Chávez about the Venezuelan trade embargo on Colombian goods. Chávez in turn accused Uribe of plotting his assassination by paramilitary forces and threatened to leave the summit early.

Another pressing issue that will be considered by the Rio Group - whose meetings are not public - is whether to acknowledge Porfirio Lobo as the legitimate president of Honduras. Lobo, who was not invited to the summit, was elected president following a coup in June last year and the ejection of his predecessor, Manuel Zelaya, from the country.

Representatives will also discuss aid to help Haiti recover from the devastating January 12 earthquake and the disputed sovereignty of the British-owned Falkland Islands. The Latin American and Caribbean nations backed Argentina’s claim to the Atlantic islands where Britain has plans to drill for oil.

Bloggers have reacted to the summit and to the altercation between the two leaders:

From El Tiempo, a Colombian newspaper’s blog:

Colombians and Venezuelans have two loquacious leaders who don’t measure their words. They speak without minding the consequences to the two countries’ relations. The effects are evident: the so-called economic blockade that Caracas maintains on Colombia, the poverty that Venezuela faces and the crisis of Colombian exporters. What is also true is that Chávez has been responsible for wild, vulgar and disrespectful verbal abuse, not just against Uribe, but also against all Colombians. He deserved a manly rebuttal.

From Juventud Surversiva, a pro-Bolivarian revolution blog:

Uribe and his henchmen have handed over not only their nation, but also the entirety of Latin America on a plate. How can anyone justify an extensive and impertinent U.S. military presence in Colombia to combat drug trafficking and terrorism?

From The American,the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute blog:

Ironically, this confrontation came at a summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders intended to launch a “regional mechanism” that might serve as an alternative to the Organization of American States (OAS). Apparently, Latin and Caribbean diplomats think that a new forum—minus the United States and Canada—might advance their common interests more effectively. However, it is clear from the showdown in Cancún that Chávez is the problem. His polarizing, bullying style has poisoned the atmosphere at the OAS and will undermine confidence wherever he goes.

Meanwhile, La Crónica de Hoy, a Mexican newspaper, quoted President Evo Morales of Bolivia, an ally of Chávez:

[P]resident Uribe provoked President Chávez, who listened patiently and then tried to explain the issues. President Uribe would not let him speak and that is when the small problems arose.

- James Matthews

The aim is to relieve overcrowding in the makeshift camps where many of the one million-plus Haitians left homeless have been living.

But as Haiti continues to struggle five weeks after the quake, a few stories of hope are emerging as well. Steve Chao of Al Jazeera English reports from Haiti.

Workers cleaning in Port-au-Prince. Photo: USAID on Flickr

One month after the Haiti earthquake, where are we? The international television units are mostly gone, a smattering of foreign reporters are still in Port-au-Prince, and what’s the situation on the ground?

Dire, virtually overwhelmed, hopelessness and helplessness.

The Haitian government now estimates that 230,000 people died in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Relief agencies say that they are still only providing immediate relief and haven’t been able to even consider rebuilding and long-term housing. Will things get better any time soon?

My former colleague at the Washington Post, Peter Slevin, reported from Port au Prince: “Haiti is tumbling headlong through a crisis that has not begun to abate, with evidence everywhere that current relief efforts are falling short.”

It’s difficult to know what to say. All along, it has been evident that without a massive effort to start over in Haiti – a Marshall plan-like international operation the likes of which has never been seen – that country will be suffering unbelievable, ineffable horrors.

Slevin wrote: “The sadness is sometimes suffocating, yet the agony of last month’s earthquake is being overtaken by the urgency of now. Every day, tens of thousands of Haitians face a grueling quest to find food, any food. A nutritious diet is out of the question.”

This is not an appeal for money. Many of us have given money. Well-meaning artists have given their energy and their names to raising funds. International organizations are there, the U.S. military has been there. It’s not nearly enough.

What can be done? A lot more than naming a commission comprised by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to raise money for the rescue. Clinton by the way was in Haiti recently, and someone asked if he would be taking over as the virtual leader of the country.

He said it was probably in response to several realities — the Haitian government and the president Rene Preval are hardly visible and hardly leading anything. Second, Clinton has been deeply concerned and even before the earthquake was the special U.S. envoy to the country. (It is not known what Bush has contributed to the rescue effort).

And above all, Haitians are looking for rescue, and they don’t trust their institutions, such as they are.

Perhaps, says another long-time colleague, Amy Wilentz, who has one of the clearest understandings of Haiti among Americans, “that with all the misery, you begin to see that Haiti’s soul resides in its people. Out of this horror, maybe they will finally be released. That is, if the rains or another quake doesn’t stop them in their tracks.”

She warns against complacency, even against tacit racism directed toward Haiti, by people who say the situation is hopeless. She says that the story must endure, and we must continue to shout out on behalf of the Haitian people.

Wilentz wrote last week about a form of “genteel racism” that has set in among some commentators about Haiti, as if there was something wrong with Haitians inherently that relegates them to misery. She rightly decries that attitude.

A reading of Haitian history shows marked colonial mistreatment, disregard and neglect: “Armchair commentators who know nothing about Haiti — many never having set toe there…enjoy rebuking suffering Haitians from the comfort of their white bastions in the United States and Europe.”

Wilentz, writing in the Nation, is recommended reading:

“We need constructive answers….Good ideas are coming in from people like Paul Farmer, who’s run Haiti’s Partners in Health for years and who is now Bill Clinton’s deputy at the United Nations. They’re coming in from Haitian survivors in all rubble-strewn walks of life….people like this are trying to find a way toward rebuilding Haiti, and building it better.

“You have a choice in a situation like the one we’re confronting. You can sit back in your chair and fondle your nihilism, or you can try to be original and work toward something creative.” Some people, she says, “will shrug…and turn away. In a moment of such death and destruction, that’s not the reaction one should hope to elicit.”

- Peter Eisner

And although the story may be fading from the headlines, the crisis continues.

It’s an unfortunate reality that in any disaster, there are those who will seek to profit from the situation — a fact confirmed by allegations that some officials are rigging the system by which food and medicine are distributed.

Rob Reynolds of Al Jazeera English has more on the allegations of corruption:

Do reports of abuse make you less likely to donate to the Haitian relief effort?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please be respectful and on-point. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.

Patrick McCormick of the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, talked to World Focus about vulnerable children around the world.

You can see more on the suspected child smugglers here, from our partner ITN.

The accused American missionaries in their cell. Photo: ITN

Ten Americans remain in custody in Haiti, accused of illegally trafficking children after they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic on a bus.

Haitian authorities are debating what to do with the group of missionaries that allegedly intended to smuggle the children — after reportedly being told they were all orphans.

Were the American missionaries justified in trying to take a group of kids out of Haiti?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please be respectful and on-point. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.

Ushahidi’s Haiti site on 1/29/10.

Ushahidi, which is Swahili for “testimony,” is an innovative web platform that aggregates info from many sources — “crowd-sourcing.” Worldfocus spoke to Ushahidi about crisis-mapping in Haiti.

To give info to Ushahidi about events in Haiti: send a local text message to 4636 or int’l SMS to +44 7624802524 / e-mail Haiti@ushahidi.com / Twitter with #Haiti or #Haitiquake

Worldfocus: How does Ushahidi work?

Ushahidi: The Ushahidi platform, initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008, aggregates information received via email, SMS, twitter and web reports.

The information is then collated into a dashboard where the administrator of the instance or group of approved volunteers can approve the message (geo-locating it on a map) and thus making it display on the map front-end as a red dot and/or icon.

Each report includes location, date, time and description and allows users to posts additional information as comments. Reports are also flagged as “verified” or “unverified.” The team is working on adding another flag for “acted upon.” The platform is Free and Open Source Software that is continually being improved upon by programmers around the world.

[For the Haiti quake], we set up situation rooms at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston and in Washington, DC. As of Monday, 1/18/10, another situation room was set up in Geneva, Switzerland, and a training was held on Tuesday evening in Boston to recruit additional volunteers, a critical concern for sustainability of the project. Volunteers have mainly focused on “crowd-sourcing the filter” which includes combing news reports and Twitter feeds.

We’re also gathering photos and video footage. We’re mapping that information as quickly as we possibly can. We are processing hundreds of incoming text messages direct from Haiti in near real-time.

90% of incoming SMS are in Creole, and they are translated by a group of Haitian volunteers in the United States.

Worldfocus: How quickly did Ushahidi respond to the earthquake in Haiti?

Ushahidi: Patrick Meier found out about the earthquake around 7pm on 1/12/10. He immediately contacted David Kobia, our director of technology development and within half an hour we had a basic Ushahidi install for Haiti up and running.

We then collaborated with a number of our colleagues within the Ushahidi family, especially the International Network of Crisis Mappers, which Ushahidi co-founded and launched in October of 2009. It’s a group of about 500 people who are specialists in technology and humanitarian response.

Worldfocus: Who uses Ushahidi?

Ushahidi: Ushahidi is an open source project. The code is available for free download and as such is not a traditional for-profit-modeled competitive organization.

The more data that’s available, the better. It’s important that information is shared, not siloed. Data on the Ushahidi platform is available for anybody to take.

We’ve got RSS feeds, we’ve got an open API; people can just scrape that information right off and do whatever they need to do with it. We’re hoping that they also contribute information, so that we have at least one go-to place that people can visit to find what they need.

We simply need to get this information to as many people on the ground in Haiti as possible — that they know about Ushahidi, that they know the short code, that they know that humanitarian response teams are monitoring it in order to form their operational responses.

Currently, the following organizations are using Ushahidi to track incidents in Haiti: Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Clinton Foundation, U.S. State Department, International Medical Corps, USAID, FEMA, U.S. Coast Guard Task Force, World Food Program and the UNDP Newsroom.

Worldfocus: What’s one example of your success in Haiti?

Ushahidi: Here’s the transcript of a 1/18 event from one of our translators in the Ushahidi chat room:

(18:27:24) Jennifer: “This is from the clinic that my friend is operating in on the ground: ‘Just received an email to put the diesel need on [the] map. Then I got a call from Hal Newman to see if the need was legit. He is an emergency manager supporting the Haiti response. He just sent the deisel [sic] request to Marcie Roth, the senior FEMA advisor, who will contact the State Department. They will contact the military and the diesel should be on its way.’”

(18:27:41) Jennifer: “They were desperate for fuel yesterday.”

(18:28:16) Jennifer: “And very grateful for the fast response they got back once entering their clinic location and need on the map.”

- Ben Piven

One of the big fears is that disease will spread, and there are already reports of a growing number of cases of diarrhea.

Today, 17 days after the quake struck, we return to Haiti, where Jonah Hull of Al Jazeera English found a deepening medical emergency.

When the quake struck, Kristensen was in his 3rd floor office preparing for a meeting. He considered trying to run out of the building but instead jumped under a desk. A bookcase fell against a filing cabinet in such a way that he had enough space in the rubble to stretch his arms and legs.

Kristensen, a citizen of Denmark, was without food or water for five days. Since he was largely unharmed, Kristensen chose to stay in Haiti to help with the rescue mission. Mohammad al-Kassim of Worldfocus spoke with him from Port-au-Prince.

Photos are courtesy of the United Nations on Flickr and United Nations television.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

But increasingly the focus is on recovering the dead — and improving conditions for many hundreds of thousands just trying to get by.

Officials say that 200,000 people have left the ruined capital, reversing decades of migration into Port-au-Prince.

At the same time, there is a plan to move some 400,000 people from squalid camps to cleaner, safer tent cities on the outskirts of the capital.

Rob Reynolds of Al Jazeera English reports on the situation in the capital:

In the early 1990’s, tens of thousands of Haitians tried to escape economic hardship and political repression by heading to the U.S. on small boats. Most were intercepted and set back to Haiti.

After the earthquake, another generation of Haitians is boarding boats in search of a better life.

Tony Birtley of Al Jazeera English reports on these evacuees:

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

But relief workers say that help is slow getting to those who need it, and people are still dying from untreated injuries. Meanwhile, scattered looting continues in the capital.

Dozens of countries are contributing to the relief effort — both with funding and manpower. China’s rescue mission is using life detectors and snake-eye cameras to find survivors in the rubble.

According to China Central Television, the Chinese team has found 15 bodies in 23 collapsed buildings. They have also found an additional 12 bodies while working with other international teams. CCTV has more:
(View full post to see video)

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

In the aftermath of last week’s earthquake in Haiti, the Dominican Republic has expressed solidarity with its neighbor.

Though Haiti and the DR share the island of Hispaniola, their histories, cultures and economies greatly differ. Racial tensions, stateless children and immigrant violence have created tensions along the border.

Martin Savidge hosts Marselha Gonçalves Margerin of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights and Michele Wucker of the World Policy Institute to discuss these unequal neighbors.

Dominicans of Haitian descent.

The show explores:

• the intertwined but distinct histories
• Haitian migrants in the DR and Dominicans of Haitian descent
• migration and trade along the border
• the statelessness of children born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian migrants
• the role of the Dominican Republic, the U.S. and international community

GUESTS:

Marselha Gonçalves Margerin is the advocacy director at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights working with RFK Human Rights Award Laureates from Latin America and North Africa. She works directly with Sonia Pierre of the Dominican Republic on issues of race and discrimination facing Dominicans of Haitian descent. She has also worked with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, as well as other non-governmental, academic and international organizations.

Michele Wucker is the executive director of the World Policy Institute in New York City and the author of “Why Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.” She also was a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow working on evolving notions of citizenship, belonging and exclusion. Her work involves the politics and economics of immigration and integration, transnational political processes, the politics of culture, Latin America and the Caribbean and international finance.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

The threat of aftershocks has kept most inhabitants of Port-au-Prince out of their homes. People still left in the city spend the nights in makeshift sleeping compounds. Our German partner Deutsche Welle reports on the strong aftershock that hit early this morning.

Photo: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Michael Blanpied, USGS Earthquakes Hazards Program coordinator, gives an update on the current situation in Haiti. He talks about the expectations for continued aftershocks in the coming weeks. To listen to the U.S. Geological Survey’s latest podcast on Haiti with Blanpied click here.

Mark Turner, author of Dispatches from a Fragile Island shares his thoughts and personal experiences during the aftermath of the crisis.

Another awful day of bad news.

The full extent of the losses to our community is finally hitting home, as hope disappears.

This morning we learned of the death of the wonderful, vivacious Alexandra Duguay, whose house we visited only a couple of weeks ago. Also at that house party was Andrew Wyllie and family. Andrew survived, but we have learned his family did not…

It’s devastating. Everyone we met, every party we attended, everyone we had a meal with or invited over has either perished, or lost someone very close. And there is so much we still don’t know.

The fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has received a lot of attention since the earthquake. Haiti’s lack of resources and widespread poverty before the quake have made the current situation even more grave.

However, a more nuanced view of Haiti is often lacking. Richard André, a guest blogger for Americas Quarterly, discusses the culture and resilience of Haiti beyond the poverty. André was born in Queens, New York to Haitian parents.

Then, as now, the world and its news agencies are turning their attention to Haiti: a small country in the Caribbean that goes almost entirely unnoticed on a daily basis. That is, unless a crisis requiring foreign aid and intervention emerges, as most do. It is no surprise that upon hearing that my family is from Haiti, most Americans respond in an apologetic tone, saying that my country is sad and vulnerable and with an unfortunate past.

The “Haiti = poor” perspective, despite being a gross oversimplification, can be explained and exemplified by the coverage on every news channel immediately following the earthquake. Second to the fact that the earthquake happened, the most memorable piece of information that was repeated over and over is that “Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” Though the poverty that has plagued Haiti and exacerbated these disasters is part of the country, it is also just that—only a part of a complex history and identity that is both proud and rich.

Experts give their views on how Haiti should rebuild the country and the best ways to supply aid in Foreign Policy.

In Haiti, neither relief nor reconstruction will be enough: Restoration should not be the goal. The earthquake is not the first natural catastrophe that Haiti has faced. In 2008, four hurricanes wreaked devastation. Since 1994, five major natural catastrophes, an average of one every three years, have hit Haiti’s population centers. Worse, these spikes of disaster have punctuated a long-term downward drift. To exit from this spiral, relief is not enough: A coordinated and targeted multibillion dollar Haiti fund now has to bring real hope of change to the country’s youth.

For raw, aerial footage of the devastation in Haiti watch the Associated Press report here:

Read what some people are saying about today’s aftershock on Twitter:

LeChantdOiseau Been another quake in #Haiti?

thatgirl_hannah Pray for haiti- big aftershock this morning, 6.1

blackmediascoop Its only been 8 days & HAITI gets hit AGAIN! A 6.1 mag “AFTERSHOCK” struck this morning. Experts say these aftershocks could last for MONTHS

-Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Arnold was in Haiti earlier this week.

Concern Worldwide has worked for 40 years on the front lines of some of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

Zeina Khodr of Al Jazeera English has more on the Haitian government:

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Al Jazeera English’s Mike Kirsch reports from Port-au-Prince on the frustration as aid is only slowly getting through. And while some earthquake victims are going hungry, others are fighting for food.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Aid workers are struggling to provide healthcare and safeguard against crippling disease as the aftermath of the disaster drags into its second week.

Photos: IMC and the United Nations Photo’s Flickr photostream.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.
(View full post to see video)

He and Martin Savidge discuss the looting, violence, relief and aid distribution. They also examine the damaged areas outside of the capital city.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.