Haiti Earthquake Victims Despair as Food, Water and Medical Relief Delayed
Officials concerned about growing unrest over supplies, attention to foreigners.
Jan. 15, 2009— -- Despair among the Haitian people clamoring for food, water and medical care is turning into simmering anger as relief workers struggle to reach earthquake victims.
The Haitian people, as well as the thousands of foreign missionaries and aid workers trapped in the country's capital, are entering day three without food or water. Supply pallets have piled up by the tons in the Port-au-Prince airport with no way to reach the hardest hit communities.
"We're waiting, we're waiting for three or four days, just cannot do nothing," one Haitian man said, his frustration painfully obvious. "The president is staying at the airport while he does nothing for us."
"We need help because it's urgent," another citizen pleaded.
Click here for more information on how you can help the victims of the Haitian earthquake.
ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer felt the rising anger when she on the streets of Port-au-Prince today.
"I was surrounded by a giant group of people and they were yelling at me and they were yelling about the need and where is everybody and what's happening. I don't think they were going to hurt me or anybody else.. but it was that close. It's a tinderbox out there," Sawyer told "Good Morning America."
She said Lt. Gen. Ken Keen also expressed frustation at the slow movement of supplies from the airport to those who need them in the ravaged city/
"I was talking to Gen. Keen and he told me, 'Today I am going to spend my day figuring out where the bottleneck is.' He said there is water sitting in a warehouse right over there and waiting for the U.N. and other aid organizations to distribute it."
Adding to the tension is growing unrest among Haitian citizens that the search and rescue efforts have largely been focused on Americans and other foreigners. Stores have also been cleaned out by desperate Haitians, but the U.N. World Food Program denied a report that its warehouse in Port-au-Prince had been looted.
There are still no official death toll estimates, though most estimate tens of thousands were killed. Haitian President Rene Preval said that 7,000 bodies have already been buried in a mass grave, and decomposing bodies are filling the streets with a sickening stench.
"I'm very sad because my country is in great difficulty," Preval said from his post at the airport.
So far two Americans have been confirmed dead, although officials are trying to determine whether three others taken from the rubble were also Americans. In addition, several American college students and professors who were on trips to Haiti have not been heard from.
"We've been here doing everything we can," U.S. Lt. Gen. Ken Keen told "Good Morning America." "I can say our efforts have been pushed forward as fast as we can get here."
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