PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Angry crowds mobbed three food distribution sites in Haiti’s capital yesterday, the latest handouts to turn chaotic as aid groups struggle to help the throngs left desperate and hungry by the catastrophic earthquake.
Several people fell and risked being trampled as a crowd rushed the grounds of the ruined Ministry of Culture, where Haitian police handed out bags of food from two trucks.
Also yesterday, U.N. peacekeepers in Cite Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince’s worst slums, fired warning shots when a crowd turned angry as people waited for rice. Another food distribution turned unruly near the Haitian art museum.
Despite these incidents, not all handouts have been chaotic. Aid groups acknowledge huge logistical problems but say they are increasingly getting food to the hundreds of thousands needing help since the Jan. 12 quake.
At the Ministry of Culture, Haitian police handed out bags containing such staples as oil, soap, pasta and rice.
But there was not enough food for the tens of thousands of people who swarmed the site, and too few police officers to keep order.
A group of men scaled the fence, jumped on the trucks and began throwing food bags to the people below, mainly to the stronger men and boys at the front of the crowd.