GONAIVES, Haiti - United Nations peacekeepers fired shots into the air and lobbed tear gas to disperse Haitians rioting outside a food distribution center in this tempest-ravaged city Friday, underscoring the growing volatility of the humanitarian crisis wrought by Tropical Storm Jeanne.
Pandemonium erupted when groups of young men believed to be gang members began pushing their way to the front of a line of about 1,000 mud-splattered people - many of whom hadn't eaten in days - by pummeling those ahead of them with sticks and plastic food buckets.
"Get back!" "We're starving!" angry Haitians roared as they tried to push the men back. Some began fistfights.
Members of the crowd screamed, fell to the ground or ran in panic as peacekeepers guarding the food began firing assault rifles into the air, but no one was injured.
Growing security problem
The fray was the fiercest of several scuffles that have erupted at food lines since Jeanne hit Gonaives last Saturday, destroying much of the city of 250,000.
International aid workers were clearly frustrated by the growing security problems surrounding their already daunting mission. Haitian civil defense officials say the storm left at least 1,160 dead, 1,250 missing and affected nearly 300,000 nationwide, most of them in this city, which remains without electricity and where at least 22,000 people are homeless.
"Even in the Congo Brazzaville there's more order than here," said Eric Mouillefarine, head of the UN humanitarian aid team in Gonaives. Brazzaville is the capital of the civil war-wracked Republic of the Congo.
He accused the Haitian government of failing to provide adequate local security to back the 400 UN peacekeepers deployed in this city, which like much of Haiti is beset by armed gangs. An additional 150 multinational troops were to arrive Saturday.
Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest and one of its most troubled nations, has no army and almost no police force.
Before dawn Friday, would-be food looters burglarized the church that was being used as the distribution center, where the riot broke out later, but the supplies - mostly rice, beans, wheat and cooking oil - had been moved, UN officials said.
Even before the fracas, tempers flared as storm victims, most standing barefoot in the putrid rivers of mud that still course through much of the city and its buildings, waited for food handouts for hours under a punishing sun. Many said they'd waited six hours for food on Thursday as well but left after being jostled by gang members.
Many residents accused gang members of seizing food handouts and distributing them to followers or selling them on the black market - something aid workers couldn't confirm.
Relief workers said they have sufficient food but are unable to distribute it to all areas because so much of Gonaives remains under mud and many affected areas lack roads wide enough for the 10-ton delivery trucks.
As for drinking water, "We have only a fraction of what we need," said Joe Fay, a health adviser to Oxfam, a worldwide relief agency. Fay fears a health epidemic because of the number of floating animal carcasses.
Desperate walk
At Independence Place, the city's main square, groups hawked gasoline, as well as fried fish, boiled eggs and potato chips two to three times the normal rate, but they had few buyers because most residents have no money.
Desperate for food and drink at affordable prices, many Gonaives residents walked nearly six hours south to the nearest market, balancing sacks on their heads and hiking their skirts or shorts as they waded through the flooded road, past a surreal scene of trucks overturned in the water and egrets nesting near mostly submerged cacti.
"If we wait for food handouts in Gonaives, we'll starve," said Jacqueline Riche, who lost two nephews in the flood, as she waded on through the muck.
