PORT-AU-PRINCE // World leaders pledged massive aid programmes to rebuild Haiti but desperate earthquake survivors are still waiting for food, water and medicine.
Five days after a 7.0 magnitude quake killed up to 200,000 people, international rescue teams clawed away at the rubble of collapsed buildings in the wrecked capital, Port-au-Prince, in a race against time to find more survivors.
But logistical logjams kept major relief from reaching the hundreds of thousands of hungry Haitians waiting for help, many of them sheltering in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.
"I'm going there with a very heavy heart. This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. The damage, destruction and loss of life is just overwhelming," the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said as he boarded a flight for Haiti.
Mr Ban arrived today and was met by the acting chief of the UN peacekeeping mission, Edmond Mulet. His first stop is going to be the five-storey UN headquarters that collapsed in the quake, burying the UN mission chief Hedi Annabi and many others.
The United Nations was feeding 40,000 people a day and hoped to increase that to one million within two weeks, he said. "The challenge at this time is how to co-ordinate all of this outpouring of assistance."
As people turned more desperate and in the widespread absence of authority, looters swarmed over collapsed stores carrying out food and anything else they could find. Fighting broke out between groups carrying knives, ice picks, hammers and stones.
Residents awoke to find the bodies of thieves lynched by mobs or shot by men claiming to be plainclothes police. A Reuters journalist said he saw the burnt body of a man locals said was set ablaze by angry residents who caught him stealing, and two young men lying on the ground with bullet wounds to the head and arms tied behind their backs.
"Haitians are partly taking things into their own hands. There are no jails, the criminals are running free. There are no authorities controlling this," said a teacher, Eddy Toussaint, part of a crowd staring at the bodies.
Many Haitians streamed out of the city on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed in cars to find food and shelter in the countryside.
Others crowded the airport hoping to get on planes that arrived laden with emergency supplies and left packed with Haitians. The shell-shocked government has given the US military control over the tiny airport to guide aid flights from around the world.
Dozens of nations have sent planes with rescue teams, doctors, field hospitals, food, medicine and other supplies, but faced a bottleneck at the airport, where fuel was in short supply. Some groups complained that their flights had been diverted to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, forcing them to carry emergency supplies into Haiti overland.
On the streets of Port-au-Prince, scarce police patrols fired occasional shots and tear gas to disperse looters and the distribution of aid appeared random, chaotic and minimal.
Hundreds of lorries carrying aid and guarded by armed UN patrols streamed away from the airport and UN headquarters to different parts of the city.
They were soon obstructed on streets clogged with people, vans carrying coffins and bodies and even makeshift roadblocks put up by homeless survivors forced to live and sleep out in the open.
There were jostling scrums for food and water as US military helicopters swooped down to throw out boxes of water bottles and rations. A reporter also saw foreign aid workers tossing packets of food to desperate Haitians.
"The distribution is totally disorganised. They are not identifying the people who need the water. The sick and the old have no chance," said Estime Pierre Deny, standing at the back of a crowd looking for water with his empty plastic container.
Aftershocks still shook the capital, terrifying survivors and sending rubble and dust tumbling from buildings.
Three people were pulled out alive from a supermarket early yesterday. US and Turkish teams freed a seven-year-old Haitian girl, a Haitian man and an American woman from the rubble of the five-storey building. They were dazed but did not appear to be seriously injured.
Haitian government officials said the death toll was likely to be between 100,000 and 200,000.
Dozens of bloated bodies have been dumped in the yard outside the main hospital, decomposing in the sun. The hospital gardens were a mass of beds with injured people, with makeshift drips hanging from trees.
Haiti's government is struggling to operate as the quake destroyed the presidential palace and knocked out communications and power. The president, René Preval, is living at the judicial police headquarters and holding cabinet meetings with foreign ambassadors outside, seated on plastic chairs.
"Everything in Haiti is broken. All the ministries are fallen. There is not one person in the country without a friend or family member dead," said the information minister, Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue.
"When they say the government is not fast, we are truly doing our best."
* Reuters
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
RACE CARD AND SELECTIONS
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 1,200m
5,30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,200m
6pm: The President’s Cup Listed (TB) Dh380,000 1,400m
6.30pm: The President’s Cup Group One (PA) Dh2,500,000 2,200m
7pm: Arabian Triple Crown Listed (PA) Dh230,000 1,600m
7.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 1,400m
The National selections
5pm: RB Hot Spot
5.30pm: Dahess D’Arabie
6pm: Taamol
6.30pm: Rmmas
7pm: RB Seqondtonone
7.30pm: AF Mouthirah
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
Squad
Ali Kasheif, Salim Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout, Omar Abdulrahman, Mohammed Al Attas, Abdullah Ramadan, Zayed Al Ameri (Al Jazira), Mohammed Al Shamsi, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammed Barghash, Khalil Al Hammadi (Al Wahda), Khalid Essa, Mohammed Shaker, Ahmed Barman, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Al Hassan Saleh, Majid Suroor (Sharjah) Walid Abbas, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli), Tariq Ahmed, Jasim Yaqoub (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmeen (Al Wasl), Hassan Al Muharami (Baniyas)
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Men from Barca's class of 99
Crystal Palace - Frank de Boer
Everton - Ronald Koeman
Manchester City - Pep Guardiola
Manchester United - Jose Mourinho
Southampton - Mauricio Pellegrino
