Earthquake in Haiti: the death toll rises to 2,189 dead

Civil Protection announced it on Wednesday: the earthquake in Haiti left 2,189 dead, more than 12,000 injured and 332 missing.

Five days after the tragedy that ravaged the southwest of the country, the challenge is to safely deliver humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of victims, some of whom live in isolated areas.

"Rescue operations are continuing," the organization said on Twitter, with 332 people still missing and 12,000 injured. 

Chaos in the southwest

The southwest of the country is in the throes of chaos as the victims of the earthquake also have to cope with the bad weather triggered by the passage of Hurricane Grace. The United States chartered eight army helicopters from Honduras to continue medical evacuation efforts. The USS Arlington, a US Navy transport ship was due to arrive in Haiti on Wednesday with a surgical team on board.

"We have about 600,000 people directly affected and in need of immediate humanitarian assistance," said Jerry Chandler, director of Haitian Civil Protection.

"We had to find means to ensure security, which remains a big challenge. We know that there was a problem at the level of the southern exit of Port-au-Prince, in Martissant but this problem is apparently resolved since we have been able to pass for the last two days, "he said.

Complicated aid delivery

Since the beginning of June, any safe traffic was impossible on two kilometers of the national road which crosses the zone of Martissant, poor district of the Haitian capital, ravaged by the clashes between gangs. Following the earthquake that devastated the country, sporadic gunfire and random vehicle attacks ceased, according to the authorities, without any police operation taking place to regain control of the neighborhood.

If this informal truce observed by the armed bands is a relief for humanitarian actors, the distribution of aid to the victims of the earthquake remains no less complicated. "It has happened that we are confronted with populations a little frustrated and impatient which cause problems and which precisely block the convoys", reports Jerry Chandler, specifying that "the idea is to be able to arrive as quickly as possible and to serve as many people as possible ".