Aid arrives in hurricane-hit Haiti as desperation grows in cut-off towns

PanARMENIAN.Net - Helicopters are ferrying in food and medicine to devastated southwestern Haiti, but almost a week after Hurricane Matthew's assault life here is still far from normal and desperation is growing in communities where aid has yet to arrive, the Associated Press reports.

Power is still out, water and food are scarce, and officials say that young men in villages along the road between the hard-hit cities of Les Cayes and Jeremie are putting up blockades of rocks and broken branches to halt convoys of vehicles bringing relief supplies.

"They are seeing these convoys coming through with supplies and they aren't stopping. They are hungry and thirsty and some are getting angry," said Dony St. Germain, an official with El Shaddai Ministries International.

A convoy carrying food, water and medications was attacked by gunmen in a remote valley where there had been a bad mudslide, said Frednel Kedler, the coordinator for the Civil Protection Agency in Grand-Anse department. He said authorities will try to reach marooned and desperate communities west of Jeremie on Monday.

Throughout Haiti's southwestern peninsula, people were digging themselves out from the wreckage of the storm, which killed hundreds, destroyed tens of thousands of houses, left at least 350,000 people in need assistance and raised concerns of a surge in cholera cases.

Guillaume Silvera, a senior official with the Civil Protection Agency in storm-blasted Grand-Anse, which includes Jeremie, said at least 522 deaths were confirmed there alone — not including people in several remote communities still marooned by collapsed roads and bridges.

The National Civil Protection headquarters in Port-au-Prince, meanwhile, said its official count for the whole country was 336, which included 191 deaths in Grand-Anse.