Accessibility links

Breaking News

US Military to Resume Medical Evacuation Flights from Haiti


The U.S. military has resumed evacuation flights for critically injured Haitian earthquake victims to the United States for medical treatment.

The medical evacuation flights were suspended last week in a dispute over where the patients would be treated and who would pay for their care.

The White House says it has received assurances that the United States and its international partners have the medical capacity to treat the injured Haitians.

Meanwhile, many schools in Haiti's outlying provinces reopened Monday for the first time since the January 12 earthquake. However, Haitian officials say it could be several months before schools in harder hit areas of the country are open.

On Sunday, aid workers in Haiti arranged to fly three critically ill children in a private plane from Port-au-Prince to Children's Hospital in the northeastern U.S. city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Officials say the children were a five-year old with tetanus, a 14-month-old boy with pneumonia, and a baby with third-degree burns from sun exposure.

Aid officials in Haiti said a new coupon-based food relief system has brought a sense of order to a relief effort hampered by often-chaotic food distributions.

Sunday, officials began handing 25-kilogram bags of rice to women who received numbered coupons from relief workers identifying those most in need in the crowded camps of displaced people.

Some food handouts recently had turned unruly and violent, with mobs of hungry, desperate quake survivors overwhelming aid workers and their U.N. peacekeeper escorts.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

XS
SM
MD
LG