[Aid] delivery was still bogged down by congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport, quake damage at the seaport, poor roads and the fear of looters and robbers.
"Many people are just fleeing to the countryside, they are looking for a place to stay and for food," said Enel Legrand, a 24-year-old Haitian volunteer aid worker.
The airport congestion also touched off diplomatic rows between the U.S. military and other donor nations. France and Brazil both lodged official complaints that the U.S. military, in control of the international airport, had denied landing permission to relief flights from their countries.
Unless someone wants to argue that President Obama just doesn't like Black people and that's why help is taking so long to reach Haitians, cut us some slack. It is heart breaking to see the suffering, but moving help into a devastated area is difficult no matter how much you care. This is why local areas need to be able to survive on their own for a few days.
In time, aid will flow in sufficient quantities to reach the survivors. Our military knows how to do this. Until then, celebrities (like the UN Secretary General, for example) might want to phone their concern in, rather than bump a few relief flights for their photo ops.
UPDATE: So nobody listens to me on the price of photo ops:
Josette Sheeran, the WFP director, said this system had been used for previous emergencies and would “ensure the prioritisation of humanitarian work”. She added that a senior WFP logistics officer had been sent to the airport to make sure “the prioritisation is there”.
Ms Sheeran said there had been a “dramatic improvement” in the “flow of goods coming in”.
But until this system was agreed on Sunday – five days after the devastating earthquake - the prioritisation of flights was haphazard and the US military was accused of putting its own needs first. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, was able to land on Saturday, while some planes carrying aid were turned away.
What could Clinton do in Haiti that she couldn't do at SOUTHCOM headquarters?
But someone else is aware of the realities of disaster relief without taking cheap shots.
