Haiti food convoy attacked as security worsens

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Twenty armed men blocked a road and tried to hijack a convoy of food for earthquake victims, but were driven off by police gunfire, UN officials said yesterday as they warned of security problems in a desperate nation.

The attack on the convoy as it carried supplies from an airport in the southern town of Jeremie underscored the shaky safety in the streets that has added to frustration at the slow pace of aid since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Most quake victims are still living outside in squalid tents of sheets and sticks, and aid officials acknowledge they have not yet gotten food to the majority of those in need. Mobs have stolen food and looted goods from their neighbors in the camps.

About 20 armed men blockaded a street Saturday and attacked a convoy carrying food from the airport in Jeremie, UN spokesman Vicenzo Pugliese said. UN and Haitian officers fired warning gunshots and the men fled the scene, he said.

Haitian police have increased their own patrols and are accompanying UN police guarding aid distribution.

While Haitians are still mourning friends and relatives, many still unburied, anger at the government's sluggish response to the quake is feeding political resentment.

About 40 protesters gathered outside the government's temporary headquarters, holding placards to demand pay for state workers. Many who had jobs can't return to work because buildings have collapsed.

Hundreds more waited outside the migration agency yesterday to renew their passports in the hope they can leave the country. Others, despairing of government help, paid men to excavate loved ones from the rubble.

Hundreds gathered Monday at a gravel pit in Titanyen where countless earthquake victims have been dumped, turning a remembrance ceremony into one of the first organized political rallies since the disaster.

Many denounced President René Préval and called for the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Préval has rarely been seen in public, leaving Prime Minister Max Bellerive to defend the government's performance.

The government also has to deal with the 10 Americans who tried to take undocumented children out of the country. The Idaho-based church group was being held without charges at a police station, where a judge met with them and a lawyer yesterday, said Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue.

Bellerive has said they could be prosecuted in the United States because Haiti's shattered court system may not be able to cope with a trial.