Haiti needs 'massive response' after hurricane - U.N. chief

The United Nations appealed for $119 million on Monday to bring life-saving assistance to 750,000 people in southwestern Haiti.

|
REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivers a speech ahead of a voting session on the Paris U.N. COP 21 Climate Change agreement at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, October 4, 2016.

A "massive response" is needed to help Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Matthew and the United Nations is mobilizing on all fronts to help get the recovery under way, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.

"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map," Ban told reporters. "Tensions are already mounting as people await help. A massive response is required. U.N. teams are working with local officials to assess needs."

The United Nations appealed for $119 million on Monday to bring life-saving assistance to 750,000 people in southwestern Haiti, which is reeling from a direct hit by Hurricane Matthew.

The money will go to provide food, drinking water and shelter to the most vulnerable among 1.4 million people in need, after large areas of crops were destroyed and infrastructure was damaged, the U.N. said in the three-month appeal to donors.

"Tensions are already mounting as people await help. A massive response is required. U.N. teams are working with local officials to assess needs," Ban said.

The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti last Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rains. A Reuters tally of numbers from local officials showed about 1,000 people were killed.

Cholera has also killed at least a dozen people following the storm. Cholera causes severe diarrhoea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Cholera was accidentally introduced to Haiti by U.N. peacekeepers, who dumped sewage into a river after the 2010 earthquake. The outbreak has since infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed more than 9,000.

The U.N. has not legally accepted responsibility for the outbreak, but Ban has said he regrets it and that the world body has a "moral responsibility" to help. He is due to present a new response to cholera in Haiti this month.

"I am developing a new approach to the cholera situation and this will encompass support for people affected by the disease and for efforts to build sound water, sanitation and health systems in order to help eliminate cholera in Haiti," he said.

"This disaster makes it even more vital to significantly step up our support - and to do so right now," Ban said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Haiti needs 'massive response' after hurricane - U.N. chief
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2016/1010/Haiti-needs-massive-response-after-hurricane-U.N.-chief
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe