Aid group shocked over lack of shelter for Haitians

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Nearly two months after Haiti’s earthquake a shocking number of people lack shelter because aid groups are slow to deliver tents and tarpaulins, the international medical relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Friday.

The result is a loss of human dignity and the potential for misery and disease will increase when the rainy season arrives in April, said Colette Gadenne, emergency coordinator in Haiti for MSF.

“I was in camps where people have had absolutely nothing. They didn’t receive tarpaulins and tents and they weren’t even on the list (for deliveries),” Gadenne told Reuters.

“It’s shocking and extremely sad,” she said, adding that MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, would start distributing shelters to help speed the process.

Haiti’s earthquake struck on Jan. 12 and killed as many as 300,000 people, according to the government, leaving large parts of the capital and other cities in ruins.

Since then, life for many people in Port-au-Prince has stabilized as systems for water and food distribution improve and commerce, business and government have restarted.

Camps are also becoming better established and many families live in tents or have replaced bedsheets used for roofing with waterproof blue tarpaulins strung between poles.

The United Nations aims to distribute shelters to all the 1.2 million people displaced from their homes by April, according to Kristen Knutson, spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.