Homeless Haitians Denied Aid and Services

(AP Photo/Francois Mori)

John Bentley is a CBS News digital journalist based in New York.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

Aftershocks continue to rattle this already fragile city, with a 4.7 magnitude tremor striking at around 1:30am this morning, followed about a half hour later by a milder quake. While there have been no immediate reports of significant damage or more deaths, the aftershocks send people streaming out of their homes and into the streets, worried about the consequences of yet another major disaster.

Millions of people lost their homes in the initial earthquake on January 12th, and the Haitian government estimates that 700,000 people are now living in tents.

While President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive have been vilified by many Haitians here for their lack of leadership in the weeks after the quake, Bellerive has allegedly adopted a new tactic for moving people out of the tent cities - denying aid and garbage services to the 2,500 people who are living on the grounds of his office.

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"They stopped all the aid from coming in," said Yonel Fivelen, who lives in a small tent here. "They want for all the people to leave here, so the family of the policemen can stay here."

The police even dragged and beat a woman who was trying to clean up the area, according to numerous residents of the tent city.

"I asked the police for a mask, because of the smell," said Dalida Jeanty through a translator. She asked another policeman for a mask, "but he got angry and dragged me down the stairs, ripping of my shirt."

Jeanty said several of the people in the camp then intervened, helping her get away from the police. When CBS News tried to ask the policeman about the incident, he got in a car and drove away.

The residents say they are being forced out, pointing to five foot tall mounds of garbage that have piled up around the area, and four portable toilets for more than 2,000 people that haven't been cleaned in weeks.

But like hundreds of thousands of others here, moving from this spot is not a realistic option, because for now they have no place to go.

[tajv2005]

Not "all is well" in the Haiti Rescue effort ! It makes me wonder where all the money is going !! And just how humane is all the aid !!!

[book_of_wally]

Thats a good way to get rid of the homeless. Another way is to give them tainted food and then collect and burn the bodies at night but it may be more cost effective to brazenly not care.

[global_eye]

Nations sharing together, the excess food and basic resources they don't need, so that all humans can live in dignity. This is the message Maitreya, the World Teacher, comes with to inspire us to change our ways. The current global economic framework is out-dated, selfish, broken, and needs a total transformation into something that reflects the common spiritual connection we all share. It's time to demand our leaders take a new approach.

share-international.org

[watchdogtexas]

Where are the cries for Obama's head. The media was all over Bush for New Orleans. Oh, but this is not America. When a progressive (liberal) is in the white house, the news media become ostriches.

[Lizzz33333]

Your an idiot. Obama sent in tons of help, just like the rest of the world. Why arn't you saying the United Nations leaders heads should hang????? WHY??? Because you are a Republican voter who can't get over the fact that your party messed up this country big time over the last 8 years and lost in the general election. Deal with it, move on.

You can't force Haiti to do everything the USA way. Obama is not their President. They have laws, that's why those Christians got arrested for stealing kids in Haiti. If their government is in shambles, it is not up to the USA to tell them how to hire garbage truck workers. That's their job. There is a power struggle going on in that country, and no one is putting the police in check. Then again they have 10,000 prisoners on the loose with their prison collapsed, so the police have their work cut out for them. Katrina occurred on USA soil with advanced warning, this earthquake occurred on foreign soil with NO warning. One of the reasons Bush was incompetent with Katrina is because he sent a large portion of the National Guard to Iraq. When we needed them the most for Katrina, Rita, and Wilma they were fighting a foreign war will all their equipment from home IN IRAQ. This equipment could instead have been used to rescue people during the hurricanes. That was Bush's bad judgment. Learn your facts.

[nasadawg]

Oh yes, Good to see haiti is back to normal..
This is a way it has been for fifty years.