Police have shot two men dead for looting at a market in the Haitian capital as desperation turns to death in Port-au-Prince.
Armed gangs and escaped prisoners are at large in the flattened city adding further fear and chaos to an already overwrought situation.
As the world’s attention focuses on the earthquake ravaged Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, just 20 kilometres outside the city lies Leogane where 85 per cent of the town is now rubble.
Grim figures are beginning to emerge highlighting the sheer scale of the death and destruction to hit the Caribbean island, the western hemisphere’s poorest nation.
The fragmented Haitian government claims that around 50,000 bodies have been collected with 25,000 being ferried out and buried in recently excavated mass graves.
The number of dead stands at around 50,000 with aid agencies and the Haitian government expecting the figures to increase to around 200,000, though its admitted the true death toll may never be known.
The survivors are having to deal with the memory of the initial quake, the grief following the deaths of family and friends, hunger, thirst, a lack of medical facilities as disease looms, no security and homelessness.
Of the 9 million Haitians 1.5 million are now dispossessed and the numbers are rising.
Copyright © 2010 euronews
Tags: Earthquake in Haiti, Haiti, Security
http://www.euronews.net/2010/01/17/earthquake-in-haiti-police-shoot-looters-in-port-au-prince/
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