Violence erupts in Haiti

Violence erupts in Haiti as survivors fight for food and water

INDEPTH: Haiti

A Haitian boy cries as he tries to get food.
Authorities say more than 1,000 people are now known to have died in Gonaives and that another 1,200 are missing and feared dead.

Unclaimed bodies litter the city as authorities continue the gruesome task of gathering corpses for disposal in mass graves. Dump trucks pushed 200 bodies into a mass grave on Wednesday, but hundreds more are piled up outside morgues waiting for burial.


INDEPTH: Tropical Storms & Hurricanes

The missing are presumed washed out to sea, buried under tonnes of mud or entombed in houses still inaccessible to rescuers.

Jeanne has also left about 250,000 homeless in Haiti's northwest province.

Now, the hungry and thirsty survivors are protesting, sometimes violently, in an effort to highlight their increasingly desperate need for aid.



In Gonaives, on Thursday, desperate residents attacked each other in a panic to get scarce food and water.

"It's a critical situation in terms of epidemics, because of the bodies still in the streets, because people are drinking dirty water and scores are getting injuries from debris, huge cuts that are getting infected," said UN Children's Fund director Francoise Gruloos.

Aid workers fear there will be an outbreak of waterborne diseases; malaria and tetanus could erupt.

Written by CBC News Online staff