Many food distributions since the Jan. 12 quake have been uneventful, but U.N. troops at some of Haiti’s largest refugee camps have fired warning shots and sprayed tear gas to try to control desperate crowds.
The U.N. World Food Program, which has been coordinating many of the handouts, acknowledges problems, but says its main priority is to reach as many people as possible.
The WFP could wait until better systems are in place, agency spokesmen David Orr and Marcus Prior said in a written response about the chaotic distributions.
“But we — along with the Haitian authorities and our humanitarian partners — think it essential to get the food out quickly to those who need it most, while at the same time putting in place a more robust distribution system,” they said.
At the food handouts, young people quickly claim their places in line, laughing and joking as they know they will be the first to be served. But as the crowd presses, people start to push and shove, forming scrums that have repeatedly turned ugly and dangerous.
The old, the sick and mothers carrying small children are often left empty-handed.
“You have to be strong to fight for food,” said Olivia Alexi, 70, who waited near the back of a line of thousands of people, hungry and despairing, at a camp in downtown Port-au-Prince, while groups of young men walked away with bags of food. “It is not easy for an old woman.”
More than two weeks after the quake that killed as many as 200,000 Haitians and left up to 1 million homeless, the U.S.-led relief operation is struggling with how to supply food to everyone who needs it and keep hungry people’s anger from erupting into violence.
Water, an even more immediate need, has largely been taken care of — an achievement aid groups point to with relief. But hard-pressed aid workers acknowledge that food is a persistent problem.
“I think there is sufficient food,” said Lewis Lucke, a retired U.S. ambassador serving as the American coordinator for relief and recovery in Haiti. “The issue there is distribution and security, and security is part of distribution.”
Smaller relief organizations say there is a better way.
Sarah Gillam of ActionAid said her group was keeping its distributions small and calm by making use of camp residents and local police for security.
So far, ActionAid has distributed flour, rice, sugar and corn flour, cans of mackerel and cooking oil to 4,000 people in Port-au-Prince, and plans to supply another 4,000 in the next four days.
Aid agency CARE feeds the hungry by giving ration cards to women, which ensures the food will get to families because men are more likely to sell it, CARE’s director in Haiti, Sophie Perez, said. The system has been orderly.
One of the biggest — and calmest — camps in the capital is in an upscale section of town, on what was once Haiti’s only golf course.
The camp at the former country club is overseen by, at any time, by 200 to 400 U.S. soldiers who, with Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam and other aid groups, are protecting, housing and providing food and water to 40,000 to 50,000 Haitians.
“We’ve got a function that works,” said Army Captain Jon Hartsock.
He said the soldiers had developed a program for feeding the quake survivors since they arrived on Jan. 16, making ample use of Haitian volunteers and community leaders, and techniques from sitting down and refusing to hand out more food if anyone became unruly, to sending anyone who acted up to the back of the line.
“It’s kind of tough love,” Hartsock said.
This week, Catholic Relief Services began handling the camp food distributions. They distribute multicolored cards that entitle each woman head of household to a large bag containing a two-week supply of food — bulgur, rice, cooking oil and other products.
