UN wants 1,500 more police, 2,000 more troops to speed aid to Haiti quake victims

UN wants more police and troops for Haiti

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. mission in Haiti wants 2,000 additional troops and 1,500 extra police to provide military escorts for aid convoys and ensure that desperately needed food and water is distributed to earthquake victims without any violence, U.N. officials said Monday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council the U.N. needs to strengthen its current Haiti force, which has 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police, to deal with the increasing demands on the world body following last week’s earthquake.

The Security Council must lift the current ceiling for the force, and U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said he expects a U.S.-draft resolution to be unanimously approved on Tuesday.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the extra soldiers are essential because of the “tremendous” number of requests to escort humanitarian convoys.

“We are stretched,” he told reporters, saying the U.N. World Food Program alone is bringing in 60,000 tons of food quickly which must get to over 200 distribution points.

Le Roy said the U.N. also needs extra troops to secure the routes the convoys will be using, and for “a reserve force” in case the security situation deteriorates further.

The neighboring Dominican Republic has already offered an 800-strong battalion which will deploy later this week to secure the road from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican border, the only land bridge outside the battered country, he said.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to send an unspecified number of police.

“We have to act very quickly and very strongly,” Araud said.

Le Roy cited the often unruly crowds at points where food and water is being distributed. He said the extra U.N. police officers will also help the Haitian police who are returning to the streets in “limited numbers.”

As part of the police request, Le Roy said, the U.N. will also be seeking forensic experts and about 100 additional corrections officers to establish detention facilities once Haitian police arrest some of the 4,000 prisoners who escaped from the main prison in Port-au-Prince when it collapsed during the Jan. 12 quake.

Ban told reporters after briefing the Security Council on his whirlwind trip to Haiti on Sunday that the U.N. faces two main challenges — “to unplug the bottlenecks” and coordinate international aid.

He said “the international community supports the United Nations to take the leading role as a coordinator” of humanitarian aid.

On the military side, Le Roy said the the U.S. military and the U.N. peacekeeping force, have liaison officers at each other’s headquarters “and a clear division of labor.”

U.N. peacekeepers are in charge of “general security of the country” while the U.S. military is supporting the huge U.S. humanitarian operation and operating the airport.

U.S. engineers are also working to reopen a private port in the capital, which was less seriously damaged than the main port,

As for opening up bottlenecks, the U.N. food agency said it reached an agreement Monday with the U.S. to give aid flights priority in landing — a deal that came after the U.S. military was criticized for giving top billing to military and rescue aircraft.

World Food Program executive director Josette Sheeran told reporters an air slot system similar to one used during the Indonesian tsunami emergency and the Pakistan earthquake has been established to make sure that planes carrying food and medicine get priority in landing.

The U.N. has estimated that 3 million Haitians — one-third of the country’s population — were affected by the Jan. 12 quake. Ban said WFP will be providing food to 1 million people in two weeks and to 2 million people in a month.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said WFP distributed rations for a week to 73,000 people on Sunday, a big increase from Saturday, and is mobilizing about 16 million ready-to-eat meals which will arrive in the next few days.

“We’re all frustrated by the fact that there’s not as much aid on the streets as anybody would like, but I think you’ll see that effort scaling up very rapidly,” he said.

In a piece of “good news” about Port-au-Prince’s water supply, Holmes said, the U.N. discovered Sunday that the water pumping station “is operating — so we can put water in tankers and distribute it.”

Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.