Although we are heavily focused on achieving our humanitarian goals in Haiti, the entire NGO community takes the security of our staff very seriously, and we do all we can to minimise those risks whether to expatriate or national staff.
At the moment the situation in Port au Prince is quite volatile – there has been persistent unrest in various areas of the city, a UN aid convoy was attacked and some vehicles ransacked a little further North near to Gonaives, on Saturday a distribution in Tabarre (a poor area of Port au Prince) ended in a near riot – despite the presence of UN troops - and the forced rapid withdrawal of NGO staff and abandonment of the remaining distribution goods to the crowd, and then Saturday night this all culminated in the kidnap of two NGO workers in Petionville. They are still not safely returned and negotiations continue, but all our thoughts are with them at this time, and will be until they are safely released. The international NGO community is close knit, many people have met each other before in countries stricken by famine, drought war or other disaster, and we all want to see our colleagues released safely. And we all know if we are not vigilant it could be us next.
We have of course thoroughly reviewed our own security arrangements and are doing everything we can to reassure our staff and still maintain our role of providing aid and succour to those most in need.
Hopefully the situation will calm down in the coming days but with US troops now leaving the island the security situation is likely to deteriorate before it gets better. We have good procedures in place and experienced staff, but it is still a tense situation.
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