Irish give €2.5m – but aid effort ‘chaotic’

AS Irish people make record amounts of donations to the Haitian earthquake disaster, efforts to get emergency aid to victims is being described as “random, chaotic and minimal”.

Hundreds of thousands of hungry Haitians are waiting for help, many of them in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.

With Haiti’s police overstretched, UN peacekeepers unable to provide security and people turning more desperate by the day, hundreds of looters swarmed smashed shops in Port-au-Prince in a second day of violence.

International medical teams have taken over damaged hospitals and clinics where wounded and sick people had lain untreated for days due to a chronic shortage of doctors, surgeons, antibiotics and pain-killers.

In this country, over €2.5 million has been raised in charitable donations for Haiti in the past six days. Charity chiefs have described the Irish response to the disaster as “incredible and overwhelming” but have stressed more funds will be needed.

Concern’s director of fundraising Richard Dixon said they were hugely encouraged by the public response to what is described by the UN as “the worst humanitarian disaster in decades”.

“It’s beyond all our expectations,” he said.

Overseas Development Minister Peter Power will meet his EU colleagues in Brussels today to help coordinate the EU’s response.

Yesterday, international rescue teams raced against time to free survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au- Prince, but logistical logjams slowed delivery of medical treatment and essential supplies for the wounded, hungry and homeless.

“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. The damage, destruction, loss of life is just overwhelming,” said UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who visited the Haitian capital.

Looters fought each other with knives and rocks and as police tried to disperse them, at least one looter was shot dead.