Global General
US, UN send more troops to help in Haiti
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-20 08:08
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A Mexican rescue team created after that nation's 1985 earthquake rescued an elderly Haitan woman who had survived a week buried in the ruins of the residence of Haiti's Roman Catholic archbishop, who died.
Other teams pulled two Haitian women from a collapsed university building as one of the victim's sisters shouted praises to God.
In the city's Bourdon area, French, Dominican and Panamanian rescuers using high-tech detection equipment said they heard heartbeats underneath the rubble of a bank building. The husband of a missing woman watched from a crowd of onlookers.
"I'm going to be here until I find my wife; I'll keep it up until I find her, dead or alive," said Witchar Longfosse.
In New York, the UN's most powerful body voted unanimously to bolster the international peacekeeping corps already in Haiti.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the extra soldiers are essential to protect humanitarian convoys and as a reserve force if security deteriorates further.
The Pentagon announced that the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, had established a beachhead west of Port-au-Prince and it expected 800 of the 2,200 Marines in the unit to move ashore Tuesday. US troop strength is rising to about 11,000, part onshore and part on ship.
Canada also has about 2,000 soldiers, sailors and air crew, including two warships, deploying to the towns of Jacmel and Leogane, southwest of the capital, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Canada is ready to send more.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday the US troops plan to leave policing to the United Nations force, though he said they can defend themselves and innocent Haitians or foreigners if lawlessness boils over.
Still, some quickly found themselves doing a little policing: Troops of the 82nd Airborne stood guard outside the General Hospital because the crowd had grown so large that it was hindering the work of doctors trying to save lives.
Some neighborhoods are creating their own security forces, forming night brigades and machete-armed mobs to fight bandits.
"We never count on the government here, never," said 29-year-old Tatony Vieux in a hillside district where people used cars to block access to their street.
In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are reassuming control after escaping from the city's notorious main penitentiary and police urge citizens to take justice into their own hands.
"If you don't kill the criminals, they will all come back," a Haitian police officer shouted over a loudspeaker.
Elsewhere, overwhelmed surgeons appealed for anesthetics, scalpels, and saws for cutting off crushed limbs. Former US President Bill Clinton, visiting one hospital, reported its staff had to use vodka to sterilize equipment. "It's astonishing what the Haitians have been able to accomplish," he said.
US and Haitian officials warned Haitians against trying to reach the United States by boat. Haiti's ambassador in Washington, Raymond Joseph, recorded a message in Creole to his countrymen, urging them not to leave.
"They will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from," he said, according to a transcript on America.gov, a State Department Web site.
