Haitians continue desperate struggle three months after successive storms – UN report

Almost half of the families uprooted by what the United Nations emergency relief chief had called the “worst disaster in the last 100 years” to strike Haiti are still unable to return to their homes, a UN spokesperson told reporters today.

Haiti remains in desperate need of support three months after four back-to-back tropical storms – Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike – battered the country, killing nearly 800 people and affecting an estimated 1 million people.

In Gonaïves alone – one of the worst hit areas in the impoverished Caribbean nation – over 2,000 families are still living in temporary or collective shelters, which include tents. Those living in the makeshift accommodations continue to receive assistance, including some 5,000 kits which enable families to build transitional shelter.

But until now, only 48 per cent of the $105 million flash appeal launched in September, aimed at assisting the emergency relief effort, has been pledged, according to a situation report published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The UN also reported that a joint humanitarian fact-finding mission is in the western region of Cazale, where conditions are said to be dismal.