A group of settlements to be cleaned, organized and provided with clean water and sanitation were on a priority list provided by Haiti’s Civil Protection, based on numbers of people on site and shelter materials available.
Non-governmental organization (NGO) partners working with IOM to provide shelter and non-food assistance to Haitian earthquake victims, have started work at some sites.
Islamic Relief “UK and Portuguese Civil Defence are working to improve shelter conditions for more than 1,200 people at the Parc Saint-Clair and Parc Colofer settlements in Delmas 33 neighbourhood.
The Salvation Army has begun site planning and organization at two adjoining settlements, while more permanent shelter solutions are made available for its 3,000 residents.
In the city of Leogane, the French NGO ACTED is distributing 1,400 shelter box tents to 14,000 people.
Other partners such as AMURTEL have requested tents and plastic sheeting to assist more than 6,000 families (about 30,000 people) living in a makeshift settlement in the Bourdon area of Port-au-Prince, and to place people being discharged from hospitals.
Many other requests have been received to improve settlements in rural areas but the stock available has so far not been able to meet the demand.
Priority needs across the board remain tents and shelter kits, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, blankets, jerry cans, hygiene and kitchen kits and water purifying tablets.
Yesterday, IOM received 14 container trucks of relief items donated by the Unites States government via the relief land corridor from the Dominican Republic, and the first of several containers of relief items provided by USAID/OFDA at the recently reopened seaport in Port au Prince.
Meanwhile, work continues at the first site identified for the establishment of an organized tented settlement in the suburb of Croix-des-Bouquets where a Brazilian battalion deployed with MINUSTAH is now working on establishing water and sanitation facilities. The Inter-American Development Bank is planning to build permanent homes for 10,000 people at the site simultaneously.
Two more sites identified by the Haitian government for organized temporary settlements in Route de Tabarre in Port-au-Prince and in Leogane will require water and sanitation facilities before tents can be set up and displaced people relocated there.
So far, IOM, government and NGO partners have identified 591 improvised settlements with an estimated population of 692,000 people displaced in the Port-au-Prince area alone. However, it is likely that this figure is much higher even though many people have left the capital to seek shelter in other towns and villages.
IOM and partners are seeking to reach about 200,000 families (one million people) with shelter and non-food assistance.
In response to an initial appeal launched on 15 January and which will be shortly revised to better reflect the scale of needs in the country, the Organization had asked for US$ 30 million to provide emergency shelter and non-food assistance and to establish a cash-for-work programme that would include rubble removal.
IOM has so far received pledges totalling USD 19.6 million from the US government (OFDA/USAID), Sweden, Canada, France, Finland, Korea, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the Clinton Foundation and Argos Cement Company of Colombia to support ongoing relief operations and future rebuilding efforts.
Private donations can be made to IOM through the IOM website at www.iom.int and in the United States at http://www.usaim.org/PROJECTHaiti.asp
For further information, please contact Niurka Pineiro, in Port-au-Prince, on Tel: + 509 3490 6678, email: npineiro@iom.int or Jean Philippe Chauzy or Jemini Pandya, IOM Geneva, Tel: + 41 22 717 9361/+ 41 79 285 4366, Email: pchauzy@iom.int and + 41 22 717 9486/+ 41 79 217 3374 Email: jpandya@iom.int respectively.
