PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI Hundreds of Haitians stood in long lines Saturday, just as others had walked for hours throughout the week to receive the U.N. and regional food aid pouring into the country after a spate of deadly riots.But amid the tenuous calm, aid groups say they are just buying time — and long-term solutions seem remote in the desperately poor nation.
More than half of Haiti's nearly 9 million people live on less than $2 a day, but the sharp rise in prices has thrown some of those who could barely support themselves into the throngs of the utterly destitute.
Market stalls are piled with papayas and small bags of pasta, even in poor areas, but vast numbers of people simply lack money to buy them because global food and commodity prices have risen 40 percent over the past year.
At least seven people were killed in the food riots this month that cost Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job.The riots also were a setback to international efforts to stabilize the country, U.N. envoy Hedi Annabi said. U.N. peacekeepers came after a violent rebellion ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.
"We now need to turn this around, draw the lessons from this crisis and move ahead," Annabi told The Associated Press.
The United Nations says it will distribute 8,000 tons of food and other aid in the next two months. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has pledged more than 350 tons of food. And U.S. President George W. Bush has ordered the release of $200 million in emergency aid to nations hit hardest by surging food prices — though it was not immediately clear how much Haiti would get.
