Subscribe & Follow

Advertise your job vacancies

Haiti: Minimising food aid mayhem

4 Feb 2010

As food distributions spread to more parts of Port-au-Prince, so have kilometre-long lines of hungry, at times angry, people pressed against various crowd-control barriers: ropes, a corrugated steel wall, an army platoon, even a hole in the ground. IRIN joined the line in various food distributions in and out of the city to ask people on both sides of these barriers: what's the best way to do this?

“I just avoid them altogether,” Kellely Casimir, 23, a pregnant mother of three in Port-au-Prince, told IRIN. “I have to fight to get food...Parents with children are the ones who are not getting food. People without children are getting the food because they have the energy to fight for it.” She said she avoided food lines after she was punched in the ear while waiting in line.

Read the full article