Thousands Flee Wrecked Capital
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Port-au-Prince residents beckoned on Sunday, near where the police were firing into a building in which they said looters were hiding. Four men reportedly were shot on suspicion of looting. More Photos >
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By SIMON ROMERO and MARC LACEY
Published: January 18, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Wharf Jérémie on this city's edge was all chaos and destruction on Monday, with upturned shipping containers lying in the sea and pigs foraging on piles of refuse. But for a thousand or more seeking a ride on rickety boats away from the ruined capital, the wharf was a means to something hopeful: escape.
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"Our home is destroyed," said Yanique Verly, 33, who sells vegetables on the street. She waited for a boat to take her and her three children to her home on Haiti's western coast. "My only hope is to return to my family's arms."
Ms. Verly joined thousands of others, as the exodus accelerated from the capital on Monday, by boat, bus, car and truck, in uncertain quest for shelter, fresh water and stability in the countryside. They sought to leave an anarchic city marked by acute shortages of basic good and aid efforts hampered by bottlenecks and security fears.
There seemed no certainty on any front, not even the death toll from the huge earthquake that struck last Tuesday. Alain Le Roy, the United Nations peacekeeping chief, said he could not confirm estimates of as many as 200,000 dead.
He said that as far as he knew, the toll had not surpassed 50,000 dead. "I don't think anybody knows, to be frank," he told reporters in New York.
One clear thing was the need to leave. Bus after bus lined up at gas stations throughout the city, hoping to fill up with fuel before beginning the long trek into Haiti's interior. Some people lugged overstuffed suitcases; others carried little more than the clothes they were wearing and enough money to pay the new, higher fares.
At one gas station, the messages on some buses, painted in bright colors above their windshields, evoked something more than hope: Christ Est la Réponse (Christ Is the Answer) and Courage Mon Frère (Courage, My Brother).
"I don't know if I'm coming back," said Marcelaine Calixte, 20, a student whose house and college had collapsed, sitting on a crowded bus Monday afternoon headed to Les Cayes, a southern town.
Lt. Cmdr. Christopher O'Neil said the Coast Guard had not spotted any boats Monday leaving Haiti with refugees.
"None, zero," he said when asked about Haitians taking to the sea, "and no indication of anyone making preparations to do so."
He said it was highly unlikely that migrants would attempt the journey with five cutters right off the coast, not to mention the presence of an aircraft carrier and other ships from the United States Navy. He said anyone caught leaving the island and heading toward Florida would be returned to Haiti.
Nevertheless, Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said the United States would permit orphaned children from Haiti to enter the country temporarily to make sure that they received necessary medical care. The policy will apply to children who are being adopted by American citizens or who have been identified as eligible for adoption in the United States.
For every person who found an option for shelter or food outside the capital, many more did not or could not.
"I would like for my family to escape the misery in this city, but I need painkillers for my child first," said Manuel Lamy, 28, a plumber whose 5-year-old daughter, Yvenca, had lost her left hand. Mr. Lamy and his wife, Sagine Oscar, 30, took her to a triage center set up by Cuban doctors.
The displaced were streaming out of Port-au-Prince even as more relief, aid workers and American troops were arriving. Some hospitals along the border with the Dominican Republic were swamped with earthquake victims.
The United Nations World Food Program said it planned to distribute 200 tons of food on Monday to 95,000 people at eight locations and appealed anew for public donations. Aid workers, mobile clinics and other supplies continued to be flown in to the airport and come overland from the Dominican Republic.
Rescue workers from around the world searched for any last survivors, sometimes clashing over which team ought to be in charge of what.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, requested Monday that the Security Council immediately approve an additional 3,500 security officers for Haiti, both to maintain public order and to guard deliveries as the aid effort gathers steam.
Mr. Ban requested that the Council send 1,500 more police officers and 2,000 troops for at least six months to augment the 9,000 already here. So far, violence has been scattered, with the security situation over all fairly calm. But senior United Nations officials said it might boil over at any moment as the difficulties of living without water, food and shelter mount.
Many business owners have not opened their doors for fear of mobs ransacking their operations and stealing their merchandise. Those fear were stoked by pockets of looting in downtown commercial areas in recent days.
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"I have 450 employees who I would like to get working again, but I'm afraid of being attacked when word on the street gets out that we have water," said Roger Parisot, 48, an owner of Sotresa, a company in the Portail Léogâne district that sells purified water in small plastic pouches.
"We need American troops here to instill order immediately, or no bank, no company will reopen its doors," Mr. Parisot said. "Right now there is no way we can get the things of life — food or water — to those who need them."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States expected by Monday to have around 5,000 troops arriving here. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, arrived Monday afternoon.
"It is astonishing what they're accomplishing," said Mr. Clinton, emerging from a tour of Haiti's general hospital, which has been overwhelmed with patients. They filled its rooms and hallways, and even open areas in the yard outside. Mr. Clinton said he heard of vodka being used to sterilize and of operations performed without lights.
One of the patients outside, Vladamir Tanget, 24, lay on a mattress with a broken leg.
"The government is not doing anything," he complained. "We need outsiders to come."
More United Nations peacekeepers were visible on the streets of the capital on Monday morning after reports of a rash of lootings and shootings a day earlier.
As scavengers searched the rubble for scrap metal they might sell, rescue teams continued their search for survivors despite dwindling odds and rising estimates of the dead.
Thousands of American citizens, including many Haitian-Americans, rushed to the airport in recent days to be evacuated on military planes leaving for the United States.
Bus Terminal No. 1 has been busier than ever before, according to Dieumetra Sainmerita, who manages the station's traffic. He said that the cost of bus tickets had risen 20 percent since last week, and that people were selling whatever they had left of value to buy them.
"First there were the people who lost there houses," he said of the passengers. "Then there were people who lost relatives. Now the people I see, they are afraid of the thieves trying to steal from them in the night."
Thieves were on the prowl at the station. Marceson Romen said two men tried to make off with his suitcase, but fled when they saw police officers.
Mr. Romen, a 27-year-old plumber, was on his way to his native Artibone region. He had left his hometown to make a good life for himself. But after pulling his three children out of the rubble that was once their home, he packed them up and now hoped to build them a place on the property once occupied by his parents.
"I thought one day I would go home a rich man," he said, carrying one black suitcase and a bar of Irish Spring soap in his shirt pocket. "Instead, I am going back with nothing."
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