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Tensions Over Aid Grow In Haiti As Quake’s Deaths Pass 2,000

Published

4 years ago

August 20, 2021

Editor

Relief for the victims of a powerful earthquake and tropical storm began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure were still presenting huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.

Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others were arriving in the southwestern peninsula where the weekend quake struck, killing more than 2,100 people. But the need was extreme, made worse by the rain from Tropical Storm Grace, and people were growing frustrated with the slow pace.

Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, was closed Thursday for a two-day shutdown to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons.

The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in the capital.

Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency late Wednesday raised the number of deaths from the earthquake to 2,189 and said 12,268 people were injured. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the hard-hit small port city of Les Cayes.

The magnitude 7.2 earthquake damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.

The U.S. aid effort has been building since the initial hours after the earthquake. On Thursday, 10 U.S. military helicopters ferried in search and rescue teams, medical workers and supplies that had been pre-positioned in Haiti by the U.S. Agency for International Development after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

A Navy ship, the USS Arlington, was expected to arrive this weekend, said Adm. Craig Faller, who oversees the military response as commander of Miami-based U.S. Southern Command.

“We’ve got the momentum now,” Faller said. “We’ve got the assets in place. We’ve figured out logistics.”

The U.S. government is still working with Haitian authorities and others to determine the extent of the damage and casualties. Faller said a U.S. Geological Survey assessment projected there could be more than 10,000 deaths.

One of the U.S. helicopters landed Thursday in Les Cayes with equipment, medicine and volunteers, including some from the aid group Samaritan’s Purse. Monte Oitker, a biomedical technician with the organization, said volunteers were prepared to operate a self-contained hospital unit, capable of handling a variety of orthopedic procedures.

Distributing aid to the thousands left homeless could be more challenging.

Chery said officials are hoping to start clearing sites where homes were destroyed to allow residents to build temporary shelters.

“It will be easier to distribute aid if people are living at their addresses, rather than in a tent,” he said.

While some officials have suggested an end to the search for survivors so that heavy machinery can clear all of the rubble, Prime Minister Ariel Henry appeared unwilling to move to that stage.

“Some of our citizens are still under the debris. We have teams of foreigners and Haitians working on it,” he said.

He also appealed for unity.

“We have to put our heads together to rebuild Haiti,” Henry said. “The country is physically and mentally destroyed.”

Tension over the slow distribution of aid has become increasingly evident in the area hit hardest by Saturday’s quake. At the small airport in Les Cayes, people thronged a perimeter fence Wednesday as aid was loaded into trucks and police fired warning shots to disperse a crowd of young men.

Angry crowds also massed at collapsed buildings in the city, demanding tarps to create temporary shelters after Grace’s heavy rain. Also in Les Cayes, 22 prisoners escaped from the jail after the quake hit, said National Police spokeswoman Marie-Michelle Verrier.

International aid workers said hospitals in the worst-hit areas are mostly incapacitated, which is why many patients need to be moved to the capital for treatment. But reaching Port-au-Prince from the southwest is difficult under normal conditions because of poor roads and gangs along the route.

Even with a supposed gang truce following the earthquake, kidnapping remains a threat — underscored by the seizure of the two doctors working at the private Bernard Mevs Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where about 50 quake victims were being treated.

And another problem emerged in the quake-damaged southern provinces, where national police said villagers put up barricades on the roads to prevent aid from getting through, arguing that they need help too.

“For those people who are blocking roads at their leisure to stop it (aid) from getting through to the people, you need to wait until the aid comes to you,” Verrier said. She said special police units would escort aid shipments.

So far, the U.S. military has found the roads it needs to be open and has encountered no security issues from gangs, Faller said in an interview with The Associated Press. The Arlington will come equipped not just with a surgical team to treat victims but a Marine Corps rapid reaction security force that will stay on the ship unless needed.

“They are an insurance policy, frankly,” Faller said. “Marines are trained for that and they’re trained for the appropriate use of force. And there’s a deterrent value to having them in the area, as well. And we intend to be ready.”

Jerry Chandler, the head of the national civil defense agency, said the Haiti National Police presence has also been “an important step to help us move the aid.”

Chandler said his agency also has boats and helicopters “to bring aid and bring it quickly” to certain areas.

A group of 18 Colombian volunteer search-and-rescue workers had to be escorted out of the quake-hit city of Jeremie under police protection after a rumor circulated that they had been involved in the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The workers took shelter Wednesday night at a civil defense office, and police escorted them to the airport on Thursday.

Moise’s killing, still unsolved, is suspected of being carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries. Despite what happened to the Colombian rescue workers, Haiti is welcoming “everyone who is coming to bring assistance,” Chandler said.

Henry said Wednesday that his administration will try not to “repeat history on the mismanagement and coordination of aid,” a reference to the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake, when the government and international partners struggled to channel help to the needy amid the widespread destruction and misery.

The Core Group, a coalition of key international diplomats from the U.S. and other nations that monitors Haiti, said in a statement Wednesday that its members are “resolutely committed to working alongside national and local authorities to ensure that impacted people and areas receive adequate assistance as soon as possible.”

(AP)

News

OPINION: The Girls Of Chibok, Maga, Papiri And Our Frankenstein

Published

4 hours ago

November 23, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Famous Ogbomoso, Oyo State-born bard, Foyanmu Ogundare, had some words for evil spins and spinners. Religionists call these spinners “workers of iniquity”. They are a legion in Nigerian politics. Ogundare popularised this genre of oral poetry called Ìjálá Ọdẹ, traditionally chanted by hunters and warriors. Though a special verbal art of worshipers of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, Ìjálá is sung by hunters most times at their leisure, upon return from hunting expeditions. In an Ijala chant which he entitled Òré Òdàlè – Betrayer – Foyanmu chanted: “While the liar dies and his legs are buried in a sprinkle of ashes; the evil one, at death, has his legs laid inside hot charcoal, the legs of the righteous, at death, are stretched inside a coffin made of brass.” The bard rendered the poetry thus in Yoruba: “Purópuról’ókús’ójúeérú o/Sìkàsìkàkú, ò nasès’áàrò/Sòótó-sòótó nìkan l’óku sí’núpósí ide.” In this particular poetry, Foyanmu compared evil-doers to “alágàbàgebè” – hypocrites. They are deft and adept at killing and burying their victims, away from the gaze of the world. He, however, reminded them that when they have successfully killed and safely buried their victims, God alone is one who could take the evil shovel off their hands and unbowel their dark secrets. You will see Foyanmu’s poetry in action in Sayo Alagbe’s Ijala: Ogundare Foyanmu (2006).

On the night of April 14, 2014, rumour took over the Nigerian space. On that night, as Islamic jihadists’ trucks and buses forcibly conveying abducted 276 girls from Chibok, Borno State, disappeared into the Sambisa forest, a scary rumour whooshed in the Nigerian air. The girls were aged 16 to 18 and students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok. It brings the question, what is the place of rumour in our everyday society? Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia, in their “Rumor, gossip and urban legends” Diogenes (2007) say rumour is an “unverified and instrumentally relevant information statement in circulation”. As such, even with power, majesty and Intel reports at his disposal, as the Jihadists ferried the girls into Sambisa, President Goodluck Jonathan chose to queue behind “rumour” as an instrumentally relevant information. Rumour then assumed the place of fact.

But, what was the rumour of Chibok? That the abducted schoolgirls, mostly Christians and a sprinkle Muslims, were instruments in the hands of Nigerian politicians. But, how? When? Why?

While the All Progressives Congress (APC) was seeking to meander its way into Aso Rock in 2014, it was caught in the web of that rumour. Before anyone could stand in its way, the rumour had spiralled in like a typhoon. Even the maishai hawking hot tea by the sidewalks was sold the hot rumour. It was retailed on every outlet. Deft politicians of the APC were said to have woven the plot like a spider weaves its gossamer. Having brilliantly pelted the sour grape of “lacklustre” and “clueless” on Jonathan, “ineptitude” would finally ram in the last nail on his government’s coffin. America would buy it and APC would coast home to power. The rumour goes thus: enlisting local militants to siphon the girls out of Chibok was a top-notch political masterplan to tar-brush Jonathan. It has been said that the global outrage the Chibok abduction courted, with Barack Obama and his wife becoming willing recruits of the agenda, incinerated Jonathan. Its effect was so massive that, when he got to the polls in 2015, Jonathan was as worthless as a roll of tissue paper. For a very long time, a Big Man in the APC, said to have been handed the job of ferrying those girls out of Chibok, was never in good terms with Jonathan. Now, payday is here.

Fast-forward to last week. When their projection hits the bull’s eye, Yoruba say, the Babalawo had hardly unpacked his Ifa divination tablet, also known as an OpónIfá, than physical affirmation of his prophecy came to pass. DiFonzo and Bordia’s rumour definition again perched on us like a recalcitrant vulture on carcass. Events of last week earned the epaulette to be saluted as Nigeria’s most harrowing week. Gory occurrences happened in less than 24 hours span from one another. They were followed by high-quality rumours which traveled at the speed of light, bearing cadences of truth. Nigeria’s recent insecurity nightmares, the rumours say, are pay-day for persons in this government who, eleven years ago, gathered to cook a broth of lies with faggots of untruth.

If you saw last week’s viral video of worshipers at a branch of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) Eruku in Kwara State, the picture you would get is a prostrate Nigeria, on its knees. When you add that sobering picture to last Tuesday’s story of armed Islamic terrorists’ killing of a vice principal, abducting at least 25 students of Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi State, as well as the killing of a Nigerian Brigadier-General by ISWAP terrorists, the picture becomes complete. The week was almost ending when another horror occurred. Three hundred and fifteen students of St. Mary’s Catholic Secondary and Primary School, Papiri, Niger State were abducted. So huge is the terror that, in panic, government shut all the 47 unity colleges.

When you dig a trench to bury your enemy, folk wisdom counsels that you dig it as shallow as possible. The nugget of the counsel is that, that same trench may well be your sepulcher. In the wake of the week of palpable agony that was unleashed on Nigeria last week, the Jonathan narrative returned to Nigerian public discourse. It is the narrative of a Nigeria being run by a government that is clueless in taming the shrew of insecurity, but heavy in propaganda. The Obamas have now been replaced by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and co. as taunters of those who dug Jonathan’s grave. Evil has turned full circle.

The Eruku church invasion has preyed on the subconscious of the world ever since. Its preying comes with terrifying and terrorising images.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:[OPINION] Trump: Kurunmi’s Lessons For Tinubu

And then, the bandits stormed the church of God. Sporadic gunshots exploded. It was as if Eruku was Kyiv. When they eventually stepped their blood-stained feet on God’s sacred groove, the mainstreaming cameras caught the innermost recess of their hearts. It was thirsty for the blood of worshipers. Their physiognomy was unmistakable. It was that of our national tormentors, the Fula ethnic group, otherwise called Fulani. Dispersed across the Sahara, Sahel, West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan, this ethnic group has a sacred bonding that goes beyond the surreal.

In Nigeria, they are at the pinnacle of power. One of their topmost bloodlines in government today is Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. So also, was Muhammadu Buhari, who was once quoted to have said in 2013 that “the military offensive against Boko Haram is anti-North”. Former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, was also openly supportive of Fulani terror. In a viral video which had him crying and asking for retaliation, Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s erstwhile Minister of Communications, cried that there were retaliatory attacks against insurgents. In another sermon, Pantami called Boko Haram Islamic Jihadists “our Muslim brothers” who were being massacred “like pigs” rather than being accorded the privileges of Niger Delta militants. Under the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, a top official of that government shocked Nigerians when he said the Fula of countries in Africa had the “inalienable rights” to ingress into and egress out of Nigeria. They didn’t need Visas.

Last Tuesday, the Fula tormentors, cuddling menacing rifles like a mother cuddles her newborn, stormed Eruku. They stomped in like an army of occupation. Inhabitants said they got prior Intel of their invasion which they shared with security agencies. The question is, would Fula top chiefs manning Nigerian security hurt their bloodline to appease Eruku ‘infidels’?

So, they struck. Viral videos of their clinical operation showed about five armed bandits. They must have muttered “Allahu akbar” as they killed. Kwara State has confirmed that 38 worshipers, which included the pastor and congregants, were equally rounded up and marched into the forest. But, judging by its contiguity to the southwest, does Tinubu know that the next place to walk into for the Fulani terrorists of Eruku is Yorubaland?

Twenty four hours before, the terrorists found encore in Maga. Around 4a.m. on Monday, they struck this sleepy town in Kebbi State. It was the Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area that they chose. Maga brings fond memories of Kebbi State to me. Thirty two years ago, I saw caravans of traders, travelling on their mules galloping across the deserts through Yelwa-Yauri, Koko-Besse, Zuru, Suru, Jega, down to Argungu. Maga existed for us in conversations. Carrion-hungry ravens would seem to have polluted the unvarnished peace of Kebbi. When they concluded their pre-dawn raid of terror, 25 students were matched into the bush while the vice principal and a security guard were said to have been shot dead. In an interview, Malama Amina, wife of the slain vice principal, said the Jihadists, who dressed in army camouflage, spoke fluent Fulfude.

If you follow the unleashing of terror on the Nigerian space this past week, its abnormality would strike you firsthand. Was there a choreographed attempt to foist the narrative of an inept leadership? Or Christian persecution? The incongruities are manifest. One is that, kidnap of school students, since Chibok, would seem to have receded. Why is it resurgence now? Second is that, the inundation of the country with about four terrorist attacks in one week cannot be a happenstance. Piling the horrors into one single week raises a red flag of suspicion. At a time when America is firing its tempers at Tinubu from all cylinders, even an incompetent military analyst would confirm that this fusillade of attacks is not organic. In the manner of a recent lingo curated in Ibadan, Oyo State, that went viral, it looks like some persons, sitting somewhere, have chosen to cure past madness or even recent ones, with madness.

The upsurge of violence in Nigeria by Islamic fundamentalists looks like what Yoruba would refer to as egbìnrìn òtè. It is a complex and endless web of plots, intrigues and conspiracies. In this roller-coaster of intrigues, any attempt to find solution to one plot leads to more plots surfacing. It is comparable to a recurring infestation of disease.

To douse the fire of egbìnrìn òtè requires tact. Nigeria must do three things to wean this repeated violent blood-let off it. First, we must find out what the ideology of Boko Haram and other Islamists is. It is only when we know what makes them tick that we can find solutions to the insurgents’ irritancy. It is apparent that the “book is Haram” philosophy credited to the insurgents’ spiritual leader, Mohammed Yusuff, is no longer the Jihadists’ current ideology. Is the ideology a Fulanization agenda? Is it Islamic? Is it ethnic? These questions become necessary because there is so much Fulanization wrapped round the Boko Haram insurgency which makes prising them apart difficult. Second, in trying to tame this Frankenstein’s monster of insurgency and banditry, the Tinubu government must come clean with itself, just as it must be ready to clean the Augean stable.

For so long, Nigeria has accommodated seeds of destruction within itself like the proverbial foetuses within the gaboon viper, (Oka) which my people believe will eventually kill the snake. In Nigeria’s week of terror, security forces were fingered as enabling the insurgents. Government must clearly identify military barons and their civilian accomplices who see insurgency as business, religion or tribe. Upon identification, it must go after them with the venom of the western taipan, a species of extremely venomous snake of central east Australia origin. Saboteurs are a legion at the apex of power and are agents of the multiplication of the seeds of insurgency in Nigeria. It was this crack that Donald Trump entered in performing his “disgraceful country” showmanship. If Tinubu will, this hour, de-emphasise the politics of 2027 and embrace country, we will not have to repeat this orgy of bloodshed and kidnapping of our children.

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Edo Seeks FG’s Intervention On Land Dispute With Delta

Published

18 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Editor

The Edo State Government has appealed to the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, intercede on the land dispute between the state and its neighboring Delta.

Deputy governor of the state, Hon. Dennis Idahosa made the appeal when he led a delegation comprising officials of the state government and members of the Edo State Boundary Committee on a fact finding mission to disputed communities.

A statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Friday Aghedo, said the fact finding mission was part of an effort to ensure peace,

Idahosa used the avenue to appeal to President Bola Tinubu to use his good office to ensure justice, equity, and fairness prevailed in the areas in dispute.

“I passionately call on the President to use all necessary demarcation agencies to resolve these lingering issues,” he appealed.

While suing for peace from the affected communities, Idahosa noted that the state government was determined to protect the territorial dignity of Edo State and that of the people of Orhionmwon.

He pointed out that the Jameson River is a natural demarcation landmark to the disputed Ugbakele boundary Community.

While calling on the state boundary committee to be diligent in their investigation, he stressed that the outcome of the investigation will guide the recommendations of the committee to the governor.

“We decided to ask questions and the history of this area. We found out that this Jameson River is the natural boundary between Edo and Delta States.

‘You can see the previous structures of the AT&P company. This land is clearly for Edo State.

“We thank the community people and settlers. We plead they continue to maintain the peace pending the outcome of the National Boundary Commission,” he pleaded.

Earlier, Idahosa and his team interfaced with stakeholders and community leaders of Oben, Ikobi, Iguelaba, and Obozogbe-Nugu communities to verify their claims and grievances.

News

Police Arrest, Charge Content Creator To Court In Edo

Published

20 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Editor

The Edo State Police Command says it has arrested a 24-year-old content creator identified as Osarobo Omoyemen, for allegedly sharing a content on Tiktok capable of “inciting hostility against the Police and triggering unnecessary tension within the state.”

In a statement made available to newsmen in Benin on Saturday, the command’s Police Public Relations Officer, Moses Yamu, said the suspect, popularly known as ‘Madam Oil Rice,’ recently circulated a “false claim on social media alleging that she was kidnapped along Upper Sakponba Road in Benin City and later rescued by Police operatives who purportedly detained her at Akpata Police Station and collected the sum of Ten Thousand Naira as bail.”

Yamu said worried by the allegation, the command immediately commenced investigation, adding that it was revealed that the entire story was completely fabricated and deliberate.

According to the police’s imagemaker, Madam Oil Rice fabricated the story just to attract followers and viewership, stressing that she had confessed to having fabricated the story.

“During interrogation, the 24year old female suspect, Osarobo Omoyemen confessed that she staged the incident solely to generate online content and attract followers to her TikTok page.

“It was also discovered that she deleted an earlier video in which an accomplice in the background was appealing to viewers to follow her page, clearly exposing the motive behind the false alarm.

“The content was not only misleading but capable of inciting hostility against the Police and triggering unnecessary tension within the state.”

Yamu, while noting that the “suspect has been identified, arrested, and charged to court on Thursday 20th November, 2025 for prosecution, said “efforts are ongoing to arrest her accomplices to ensure they face the full weight of the law.”

The PPRO, who said Madam Oil Rice’s arrest and charge to court was aimed at serving as a “deterrent to others who may attempt to misuse social media to create panic or disrupt public peace,” said “the Edo State Police Command strongly warns against the creation and circulation of fake news capable of disturbing the peace and security of the state.”

He urged members of the public “to verify information before sharing and to refrain from acts that may mislead the public or undermine the efforts of security agencies.”