of epidemics in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic wheret least 1400 people were killed in tropical storms that have devastated the Caribbean, reports said.
In the area of Cite Soleil, Haiti, Marines and sailors teamed up with an American evangelical organization to help local workers scoop seemingly endless amounts of garbage, sludge and human waste into back-end loaders and dump trucks, Mission Network News (MNN) reported, shortly after dozens of more bodies were discovered in Haiti on Monday.
The clean-up project is a joint venture of Marines and sailors from Combat Service Support Detachment – 20, Marine Air Ground Task Force – 8 and Food for the Poor, a Christian Florida-based non-governmental organization, MNN said.
"Since we’ve been out here, we’ve removed eight to ten dump truck loads of trash a day from this area along with strengthening the bond between the forces here and the Haitian people," Chief Warrant Officer Michael A. Chin, CSSD-20’s maintenance detachment commander, told MNN, a mission news service.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
In the Dominican Republic, another Christian group. Food For The Hungry, has been helping 13-thousand individuals and families that were homeless. "They were looking for shelter," official Tamera Dutch of Food For The Hungry said in an interview this weekend.
"We are going to distribute food clothing and bedding items," she said. Threats of parasites from standing water dead bodies and a lack of shelter for residents has been adding to international concern that an increasing number of mosquitoes will spread diseases such as malaria and dengue fever especially among children in the area and neighboring Haiti.
In addition Agency France Press (AFP) quoted military officials in Haiti as saying that the multinational force tasked with providing security fears the hurricane season will bring more heavy rains that "could worsen an already-grim humanitarian crisis."
ANOTHER CRISIS
"There will be another crisis in the next 30-day period," AFP quoted Colonel Glen Sachtleben as telling a press conference. The multinational force, which deployed here in Haiti an armed uprising led former president Jean Bertrand Aristide to flee the country February 29, does not have enough helicopters to evacuate the entire region at risk, he said.
Yet Christian aid workers in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic have suggested that they were given opportunities to share their faith in Christ to people who they claim "have have lost all hope."
