UNITED NATIONS — Sixteen countries have offered to provide the 3,500 extra troops and police officers that the United Nations requested to beef up security in Haiti and ensure aid is delivered to earthquake victims, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said Thursday.
A week after the Jan. 12 quake devastated the Haitian capital and surrounding area, the U.N. Security Council authorized 2,000 additional troops to help the 7,000 military peacekeepers already in the country and 1,500 extra police for the 2,100-strong international police force.
“The international answer to our request has been tremendous,” the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, told reporters Thursday. “The answer has been remarkably rapid. . . . We have now all the pledges we needed for both the 2,000 military and for the 1,500 policemen.”
Le Roy said he expects the 2,000 extra troops to be on the ground in Haiti within three weeks to help escort humanitarian convoys and ensure security while aid is being distributed.
He said 900 Brazilian soldiers would be arriving Thursday and today.
Troops and police will also be coming from Japan, South Korea, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Bangladesh, Italy, India, Turkey, Pakistan and Rwanda.
One month after 40 seconds of terrifying shaking killed more than 200,000, Haiti’s people are struggling to re-create their lives.
Food has yet to reach all of the 3 million people who need it. Infrastructure problems and supply backlogs continue to hamper the aid efforts.
Downtown, hundreds of Haitians marched Thursday from the destroyed National Palace to the temporary government headquarters demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval, who has been largely out of sight since the catastrophe. He appeared Wednesday to bicker publicly with his own communications minister over the death toll.
On Wednesday, with just 49,000 of a requested 200,000 tents provided, officials announced that deliveries will stop. Foreign governments, aid groups and Haitian officials have decided that tents take up too much space and will not last long enough.
Instead, 250,000 families will get one sheet of plastic each between now and May 1 and will later receive temporary, earthquake-resistant structures of metal and wood.
