Foreign medics with orange stretchers and gallons of chlorine are stemming a cholera outbreak on Haiti’s hurricane-struck coast but the focus on a disease U.N. peacekeepers brought here six years ago is slowing the delivery of food and shelter for storm victims.
Hurricane Matthew ripped through this southwestern region of Haiti last week, killing at least 1,000 people and leaving 1.4 million in need of aid, including hundreds of thousands made homeless. It also trashed crops and unleashed a new cholera surge.
Along the shattered coastal landscape of virtually flattened villages, angry residents have set up blockades of broken trees and branches to try to stop the trucks of food and other aid they have seen speed past them.
The roadblocks reflect an anger that could quickly escalate if aid agencies and the government do not speed up relief efforts in the poorest country in the Americas.