Ban Ki-Moon flies to Haiti

UN: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was scheduled to fly on Sunday to Haiti to try to reinforce the almost overwhelmed capacity on the UN in the wake of disaster caused by the earthquake last Tuesday.

The UN Leader received yesterday a clear claim of Haitian President Rene Preval about the need to coordinate aid in relief operations launched from around the world.

Three days after the earthquake, the Haitian Leader considered this is one of the most important problems now, when the number of deaths is estimated at hundreds of thousands. The earthquake caused the biggest tragedy suffered by the UN since its creation in 1945, with huge damages to the UN Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH), deployed in Haiti since 2004.

The earthquake turned into ruins the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince and since then the Chief of MINUSTAH Hedi Annabi (Tunisia) and his second-in-command Luiz Carlos da Costa (Brazil) make up the list of missing people during the catastrophe. Ban Ki-Moon sent to Haiti other two representatives, Guatemalan Edmond Mulet and US Tony Banbury.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky confirmed that the number of UN staff killed in the earthquake is 37 and another 330 have been reported missing. The UN made yesterday a call to the international community to collect $562 million for emergency aid.

United Nations (UN), Prensa Latina