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85 elderly quake survivors await death in Haiti
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
14 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. The elderly man lies motionless as rats pick at his overflowing diaper. There is no food, water or medicine for the 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, just a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape.
"Help us, help us," 69-year-old Mari-Ange Levee begged Sunday, lying on the ground with a broken leg and ribs. A cluster of flies swarmed the open fracture in her skull.
One man has already died, and administrator Jean Emmanuel said more would follow soon unless water and food arrive immediately.
"I appeal to anybody to bring us anything, or others won't live until tonight," he said, motioning toward five men and women who were having trouble breathing, a sign that the end was near.
The dead man was Joseph Julien, a 70-year-old diabetic who was pulled from the partially collapsed building and passed away Thursday for lack of food.
His rotting body lies on a mattress, nearly indistinguishable from the living around him.
With six residents killed in the quake, the institution now has 25 men and 60 women camped outside their former home. Some have a mattress in the dirt to lie on. Others don't.
Madeleine Dautriche, 75, said some of the residents had pooled their money to buy three packets of pasta, which the dozens of pensioners shared on Thursday, their last meal. Since there was no drinking water, some didn't touch the noodles because they were cooked in gutter water.
Dautriche noted that many residents wore diapers that hadn't been changed since the quake.
"The problem is, rats are coming to it," she said.
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
14 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. The elderly man lies motionless as rats pick at his overflowing diaper. There is no food, water or medicine for the 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, just a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape.
"Help us, help us," 69-year-old Mari-Ange Levee begged Sunday, lying on the ground with a broken leg and ribs. A cluster of flies swarmed the open fracture in her skull.
One man has already died, and administrator Jean Emmanuel said more would follow soon unless water and food arrive immediately.
"I appeal to anybody to bring us anything, or others won't live until tonight," he said, motioning toward five men and women who were having trouble breathing, a sign that the end was near.
The dead man was Joseph Julien, a 70-year-old diabetic who was pulled from the partially collapsed building and passed away Thursday for lack of food.
His rotting body lies on a mattress, nearly indistinguishable from the living around him.
With six residents killed in the quake, the institution now has 25 men and 60 women camped outside their former home. Some have a mattress in the dirt to lie on. Others don't.
Madeleine Dautriche, 75, said some of the residents had pooled their money to buy three packets of pasta, which the dozens of pensioners shared on Thursday, their last meal. Since there was no drinking water, some didn't touch the noodles because they were cooked in gutter water.
Dautriche noted that many residents wore diapers that hadn't been changed since the quake.
"The problem is, rats are coming to it," she said.
