Haitians Live In Squalor After Earthquake

Haitians are enduring increasingly squalid and violent conditions in the tent cities that sprang up after January's quake, a rights group says.

Refugees International says gangs are running many camps, with women being forced to exchange sex for food.

More than one million people were left homeless by the quake.

Former US President Bill Clinton says he is frustrated by the slow release of promised funds but the US would soon make 'a big down payment'.

The US-based organisation, Refugees International, says the situation in Haiti has become more squalid as the months pass.

'The camps are overcrowded, the tent material has become degraded and people don't have proper shelter,' Melanie Teff, a spokeswoman for the group, who took part in a recent fact-finding trip to Haiti, told the BBC.

'There were overwhelming smells from the latrines because there are not enough.'

At the same time, Ms Teff said there was little or no protection for vulnerable people. UN police patrols had begun in several camps but many of the 1,000 or more estimated camps for displaced people have no police presence, she said.

'I spoke with women's groups, who told me of women being forced to exchange sex for food because they were so desperate, in order to support their families,' Ms Teff said.

Reports of gang rape were common, she said. In some camps, the security committees are run by members of the local gang.

'There is also fear of local landowners who are now demanding that they get their property back,' Ms Teff said.

Mr Clinton, who co-chairs the UN commission overseeing Haiti's reconstruction, heard the concerns of Haitians last Wednesday as he toured a large camp in the capital, Port-au-Prince which had been inundated the night before.

'The tents no longer hold up under such torrential rains. We cannot continue living in these dreadful conditions,' one woman said.

Mr Clinton's foundation pledged $500,000 (£313,000) to help the camp which is located on a former golf course.

The former US president spoke of his frustration with the slow arrival of promised funding.

The US, which pledged $1.15billion at a donors' conference in March out of a total of $5.3bn, has yet to deliver any of its promised funding.

'In the next day or so, it will become obvious that the United States is making a huge down payment on that,' Mr Clinton said, without elaborating.

The former president said that under a 'rather bizarre system of rules in the United States Senate', the money was being held up.

'Since I believe that we are still essentially a sane as well as a humane country, I believe the money will be released, and when that happens that will also other donors encouragement to raise their money,' he said.

'About $460million of the $777million of projects have already been funded. We are going to now move to be much more strategic and emphasise the areas of greatest needs: the housing, the rubble removal, the jobs,' he said, referring to projects approved by the recovery commission.

—BBC