UN approves 2,000 additional troops and 1,500 extra police to beef up security in Haiti

UN approves extra troops and police for Haiti

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved 3,500 extra troops and police officers to beef up security in Haiti and ensure that desperately needed aid gets to earthquake victims as the world body defended itself against criticism that millions still don’t have food or water.

A week after the magnitude 7.0 quake struck, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said the U.N. food agency distributed rations for nearly 200,000 people. It is a small percentage of the 3 million to 3.5 million the U.N. says have been affected. Ban said the U.N. goal is to increase the number of people receiving food to 1 million this week and at least 2 million in the following two weeks.

“The situation is overwhelming,” Ban told reporters.

But he said “initial difficulties and bottlenecks” in delivering relief items are being overcome and U.N. relief operations “are gearing up quickly.”

He cited a new system at the airport giving priority to humanitarian flights, the opening of five new land corridors to deliver aid and U.S.-led efforts to open port facilities possibly sometime next week. In addition, badly damaged hospitals are starting to function, water supplies are increasing and more tents and temporary shelters are arriving, he said.

Tens of thousands of people are still sleeping in the streets or under plastic sheets in makeshift camps, and many shout at any foreigner for food and water. Relief workers say they fear visiting some parts of the city because of looting and violence by desperate survivors.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said starting Tuesday the U.S. military will use its helicopters to bring more relief supplies to secure areas to increase the flow of goods.

The resolution adopted by the Security Council Tuesday will add 2,000 troops to the 7,000 military peacekeepers already in the country and 1,500 police to the 2,100-strong international police force.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the extra soldiers are needed because of requests to escort humanitarian convoys.

How quickly the troops and police get to Haiti depends on offers from the 191 other U.N. member states. Le Roy said the neighboring Dominican Republic has offered to send an 800-strong battalion that could arrive this week.

Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet, the acting U.N. envoy to Haiti, said 20 Chilean police have already arrived and he believes Brazil will send more troops and France will provide police.

Mulet said 3,500 troops are now in Port au Prince, patrolling and escorting aid convoys.

About 2,000 Canadian soldiers, sailors and air crew, including two warships, are already deploying to Haiti, said Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay.

As for aid, Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said the goal is to rapidly get in 4.2 million rations of high-nutrition children’s food, and 10 million total rations.

The World Food Program said it has only reached half the 100,000 people it aimed to feed on Monday because it couldn’t get the security convoys it needed and because several people were injured trying to pull rations from a U.N. warehouse that was damaged in the quake.

The earthquake destroyed the U.N. headquarters in Port au Prince, and the chief of the country’s mission, Hedi Annabi, and his deputy were among the dead.

Late Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of U.N. staff joined the secretary-general for a minute of silence in the lobby of U.N. headquarters.

Le Roy said 46 U.N. personnel died in the earthquake and 318 are still unaccounted for — 277 Haitians and 40 international staff.

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Associated Press Writers Bradley S. Klapper and Eliane Engeler in Geneva, David Stringer in London, Nicole Winfield in Rome and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.