US missionaries in Haiti charged with child abduction

US missionaries arrive at Haiti court

Haiti has charged 10 US missionaries with child abduction and criminal conspiracy for allegedly trying to smuggle 33 children out of the country.

Haitian officials said their cases would now be sent to an investigating judge who would decide how to proceed.

If convicted they face lengthy jail terms, says the BBC's Paul Adams, in Haiti's quake-hit capital city.

When stopped on the border last Friday, they said they were taking the children to a Dominican Republic orphanage.

But it has emerged some of the youngsters had parents who were alive.

'Kidnappers'

After the hearing the 10 missionaries were taken back to the jail where they have been kept since Friday.

Amid chaotic scenes, the group was bundled into a van outside the court.

"I feel good," the group's leader Laura Silsby told reporters. "I trust in God."

The five men and five women, most of them from Idaho, were due to have a hearing earlier in the week, but that was postponed because of a lack of interpreters.

Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive has labelled the Americans "kidnappers".

Justice Minister Paul Denis said they should be tried in Haiti despite the damage done to the country's judicial infrastructure and casualties among judges and court staff.

There have been suggestions the 10 could be tried in the US.

"It is Haitian law that has been violated, it is up to the Haitian authorities to hear and judge the case," he told AFP news agency.

"I don't see any reason why they should be tried in the United States."

The US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, met with the group at police headquarters after the hearing.

"We'd like to assure they get treated according to the law, the Haitian law, and that they get treated fairly," he said.

A state department spokesman in Washington said the US was watching the case closely and would continue to offer assistance, through its consulate, to the group.

'Single village'

The children, who are from aged from two to 12, are now in the care of the Austrian-run SOS Children's Village in Port-au-Prince.

The missionaries have said they were not trying to kidnap the children

Twenty-one of the children are from a single village outside the capital and were handed over willingly by their parents, says the BBC's Paul Adams, in Port-au-Prince.

Residents in the village of Callebas told an Associated Press news agency reporter they had handed their children over through a local orphanage worker who said he was acting on the Americans' behalf.

The worker is said to have promised the families that the missionaries would educate their children in neighbouring Dominican Republic.

A number of parents in the badly-damaged village said they would find it difficult to provide for their children if they came back.

Ms Silsby has said her group had met a Haitian pastor by chance when they arrived last week, and that he had helped them gather the children. She also admitted that they did not have the proper paperwork.

"Our intent was to help only those children that needed us most, that had lost either both their mother and father, or had lost one of their parents and the other had abandoned them," she said from her jail cell on Wednesday.

Extent of Haiti destruction clear

The destruction caused at the epicentre of Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti is even more dramatic than in the ruined capital, a BBC correspondent says.

Tens of thousands of people there are living in the open, and the population is in profound shock, he says.

Survivors in the capital, Port-au-Prince, have become desperate as they wait for aid gradually being handed out under an international relief effort.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to arrive in Haiti on Sunday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the first senior Western official to arrive in Haiti on Saturday.

She told Haitians that the US would be "here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead", asserting that "Haiti can come back even better and stronger in the future".

The US has launched what President Barack Obama called "one of the largest relief efforts in its history" following the earthquake, which killed tens of thousands of people and left many more homeless.

'No help'

The BBC's Mark Doyle described the scene at the epicentre of the earthquake, in and around Leogane, as apocalyptic.

People from the town, about 19km (12 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, had taken refuge in the surrounding sugarcane fields or mangrove swamps, he said.

One survivor said he had come to Haiti from America for his mother's funeral, only for his wife to be killed in the earthquake. He said that so far people in the area had received no help of any kind.

"We don't have any aid, nothing at all," he said. "No food, no water, no medical, no doctors."

The UN said up to 90% of the buildings in Leogane had been damaged.

"It's the very epicentre of the earthquake, and many, many thousands are dead," said David Orr, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme.

"Nearly every house was destroyed here. The military are talking about 20,000 to 30,000 dead."

Logistical challenges

The UN has launched an appeal for $562m (£346m) intended to help three million people for six months, while some two million people are thought to need emergency relief.

But while huge quantities of aid have been arriving, efforts to distribute it have been hampered by severe logistical challenges.

The airport has been congested, the port badly damaged, and the limited network of roads blocked with debris.

Many people have been leaving Port-au-Prince in search of food, water and medicine.

The UN has also reported a rise in the number of people trying to cross into the neighbouring Dominican Republic, and an influx into Haiti's northern cities.

David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, said aid was being delivered as quickly as possible.

"Aid is going out but it's simply impossible in 24 hours to bring in enough aid to instantly feed all these people, many of whom are in places that are inaccessible," he said.

Reports from Port-au-Prince on Saturday indicated that a crowd of about 1,000 people was involved in a violent fight over goods in one of the city's central commercial streets.

But a senior UN offcial played down the incidents of violence, telling the BBC that the security situation in Haiti was calm, minor incidents apart.

Country 'decapitated'

Estimates of how many people died following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday have varied.

The Pan American Health Organization put the death toll at 50,000-100,000, while Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said 100,000 "would seem a minimum".

Satellite and close-up images of Port-au-Prince devastation

He said more than 25,000 bodies had been collected and buried. Rescue workers have been racing against time to find survivors still trapped under the rubble.

One woman, Saint-Helene Jean-Louis, was pulled out alive from the ruined University of Port-au-Prince on Saturday where she had been trapped for 97 hours.

A UN official has said aid workers are dealing with a disaster "like no other" in UN memory because the country had been "decapitated".

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said his house had been destroyed and he had been sleeping in his car, while ministers had nowhere to hold meetings.

"For the moment, we are trying to save our employees who are still stuck under the rubble," he said. "We can hear their voices."

The UN itself lost at least 40 employees in the earthquake, and confirmed on Saturday that the head of its mission in Haiti had been found dead in the rubble of its headquarters.

UN launches Haiti earthquake relief appeal

The UN has launched an appeal for $562m (£346m), to help victims of Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said the funds were intended to help three million people for six months.

The earthquake has left tens of thousands of people dead, and rescuers are continuing an increasingly desperate search for survivors.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would travel to Haiti on Saturday.

The BBC's Matthew Price, outside the ruins of a nursing college in the capital Port-au-Prince, says he has been told by a female member of staff that there could be 260 dead bodies and up to 25 people still alive under the rubble.

A team of Brazilian rescuers is trying to gain access to the victims but progress is painfully slow, our correspondent adds.

Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters news agency that 50,000 bodies had already been collected.

"We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," he said.

The Pan American Health Organization has estimated that the death toll could be as high as 100,000, while the UN said about 300,000 had been made homeless.

The US has announced it will grant leave to remain to thousands of illegal Haitian migrants living there due to the humanitarian crisis in their country.

The chief of the homeland security department, Janet Napolitano, said they would be allowed to stay and work, initially for 18 months.

Despair and anger

Aid workers have been grappling with logistical problems as they attempt to distribute aid.

The port is too damaged to use and roads are blocked by debris, although the main route from the Dominican Republic is now clear.

At the country's main airport, which is small and has been filled to capacity, US authorities took temporary control to help distribute aid more quickly.

Correspondents say survivors seem increasingly desperate and angry as bottlenecks and infrastructure damage delay relief efforts.

Mr Holmes, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said a massive effort was being mounted and officials were "straining every nerve" to help.

"This is a huge and a horrifying catastrophe, the full consequences of which we do not know," he said.

He said almost half of the appeal money would be for emergency food aid, with amounts of between $20m and $50m for health, water and sanitation, nutrition, emergency shelter, early recovery and agriculture.

Satellite and close-up images of Port-au-Prince devastation

A total of about $360m has been pledged so far for the relief effort, but only part of this sum will be included in the emergency appeal.

Mr Holmes earlier told reporters that 30% of buildings throughout Port-au-Prince had been damaged, with the figure at 50% in some areas.

Many there have spent a third day without food and shelter in the ruined capital, though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Haiti on Sunday, said distribution of food and medicine was under way.

'Unwavering support'

The BBC's Nick Davis in Port-au-Prince says the only convoys he has seen are people leaving the city, in search of food, water and medicine.

Correspondents say there is little official presence in Port-au-Prince despite incidents of looting.

Mrs Clinton said she would visit Haiti on Saturday to assess the damage, meet government officials and convey to the Haitian people "our long term, unwavering support, solidarity and sympathies".

Earlier US President Barack Obama described the scale of the devastation as extraordinary and the losses suffered as "heartbreaking".

In a statement at the White House, he said the US would "do what it takes to save lives and help people get back on their feet".

To magnify this image of Port-au-Prince mouse over the left-hand panel The US has already sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to Haiti and the USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is on its way. A hospital ship and more helicopters are due to be sent in the coming days, carrying more troops and marines, with the total number of US troops to rise to between 9,000 and 10,000. Aid groups say it is a race against time to find trapped survivors. Plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are arriving from the UK, China, the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations. Gen Douglas Fraser, the commander of US Southcom, says around 90 aid flights a day are landing.

Haiti earthquake feared to have killed many

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of Haiti is feared to have caused major loss of life in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Haiti's worst quake in two centuries seriously damaged the HQ of the UN mission in Haiti and a "large number" of its personnel are reported missing.

Haiti's envoy to the US talked of a "catastrophe of major proportions".

Buildings, including a hospital, are said to have collapsed, and rescue efforts are under way.

The quake, which struck about 15km (10 miles) south-west of the capital, was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude.

The tremor hit at 1653 (2153 GMT), the US Geological Survey said. Phone lines to the country failed shortly afterwards.

A Reuters reporter in Port-au-Prince, Joseph Guyler Delva, said he had seen "dozens of dead and injured people" in the rubble of fallen buildings.

Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told colleagues in the US "there must be thousands of people dead".

The aid worker had managed to phone his colleagues before communication links went down.

The BBC's Nick Davies in neighbouring Jamaica says the ground apparently shook for more than a minute in Haiti.

Local people, he said, were using anything they could get their hands on - including farm equipment - to help release those trapped in the quake.

Our correspondent adds that, as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti is likely to need international aid in order to cope with the quake's impact.

'Three million affected'

In a statement issued in New York, the UN said that its local HQ in Haiti had "sustained serious damage along with other UN installations".

A large number of personnel remain unaccounted for," it added.

The UN stabilisation mission plays a vital role in ensuring security in Haiti.

Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the US, told CNN: "I think it is really a catastrophe of major proportions."

He said he had just spoken to a government colleague in Port-au-Prince:

"He had to stop his car just about half an hour ago, and take to the streets, start walking, but he said houses were crumbling on the right side of the street and the left side of the street.

"He does not know whether he would reach his home, not knowing what he would find, because he had a bridge to cross to get there."

Mike Blanpied of the US Geological Survey said that, based on the location and size of the quake, about three million people will have been severely shaken by its impact.

"This quake occurred under land as opposed to off-shore, so a lot of people were directly exposed to the shaking coming off that earthquake fault, which was quite shallow," he told the BBC.

He added that as the quake had occurred near a highly populated urban area, the aftershocks could cause additional damage to already shaken buildings.

US President Barack Obama said in a statement that his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti and America stood ready to assist them.

'Rubble and wire'

An Associated Press cameraman saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hilly suburb of the capital, and Henry Bahn, a visiting official from the US Department of Agriculture, said he had seen houses which had tumbled into a ravine.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Mr Bahn, who described the sky as "just grey with dust".

He said he had been walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake.

"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said.

"I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."

He said rocks were strewn all over the place, and the ravine where several homes had fallen in was "just full of collapsed walls and rubble and barbed wire".

BBC News website readers in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, said they had also felt the quake.

"My family is on the 8th floor of a tower in downtown Santo Domingo," wrote Max Levine.

"We felt a swaying of the building for 5-10 seconds. All the lamps were swinging. There was a 20-second pause and then another similar sway. We rushed out of the building with many others to the street."

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, a tsunami watch was put out for Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas, but this was later lifted.