Five days after the earthquake that devastated southwestern Haiti and killed nearly 2,200 people, the challenge is to safely provide humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of victims, some of whom live in isolated areas.

According to the Haitian Civil Protection, the toll of the earthquake amounted Wednesday evening to 2,189 dead, 332 missing and more than 12,000 injured.

"Rescue operations are continuing," she said on Twitter.

Rescue operations

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," explains Jerry Chandler, director of Haitian Civil Protection.

“We had to find ways 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 has apparently been resolved since we have been able to pass for the last two days, ”he explains. .

Informal truce

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 faced with populations a little frustrated and impatient who cause problems and who 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 ”.

Missing

More than 200 kilometers away, in the small town of Maniche, residents hope to receive the support they badly need after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake. “All the institutions that we had in the town are in ruins: we no longer have a church, the parish hall, the dispensary are totally collapsed…”, list with dismay Rose Hurguelle Point du Jour. Geordany Bellevue shares this disarray and is especially worried about the isolated areas of his municipality.

“A lot of landslides have taken place in the mountains killing and injuring a lot of people.

Some are missing and we do not have the capacity to go find them on the summits, ”explains the 32-year-old man.

"It's already complicated to receive aid here in downtown Maniche so when it happens, it never reaches the victims of isolated areas," he laments, remembering the management of the aid. humanitarian aid after Hurricane Matthew hit the region in October 2016.

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