Navy starts relief in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The navy vessel Her M. Pelikaan has started with relief in Haiti and became the first ship to moor in the harbor of Port-au-Prince after the earthquake.

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The relief vessel had arrived at the harbor entrance of Port-au-Prince, where the crew had immediately started with hydrographical measuring, marking a safe course of navigation and removing the largest obstacles in the harbor entrance with the ship’s crane. A few hours later, the navy vessel had moored in the harbor and the crew had immediately begun unloading the first relief goods.
However, there are still goods in the hold, said the commander of the ship, lieutenant 1st class commander Maarten Veenstra, today from Haiti. Veenstra had visited the assembly point of the World Food Program (WFP), but that is located in a closed alley in the city where Haitians had queued up.
According to Veenstra, it is too busy and too dangerous to delivery the goods there. There is food and beverage amongst others aboard. "People are hungry and will simply jump onto a truck if they think it is carrying any goods." The Pelikaan had taken along two trucks to deliver the good themselves. Their own marines will escort these.

Although the initial focus was directed towards general support for the relief, the navy detachment had received an additional assignment . Upon request of the ‘Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA), the navy personnel will assist with the improvement of the harbor facilities in Port-au-Prince so that this will become accessible for the shipping traffic again. In addition, the on board marines will support the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team with the performance of their recovery operations and assist with the evacuation of Haitian orphans. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had chartered an aircraft of Insel Air to collect the orphans. This aircraft will be leaving from Curaçao.

The Dutch marines are currently assisting with collecting the children from various orphanages. The children will then be assembled in one orphanage in Port-au-Prince. If all goes according to plan, they will travel to the airport by bus tomorrow, where they will be taken good care of. The children will receive a short medical checkup at the airport.The adoption children will first fly to Curaçao where they will transfer to an aircraft of ArkeFly that had been stationed at Hato since Monday to transport the orphans to the Netherlands.Initially the children were expected to arrive in Eindhoven tomorrow morning (Dutch time). However, it had become clear earlier on that that time was not feasible. Insel Air also flew to Miami to collect goods and American troops there and then fly on to Haiti. The aircraft will return to Curaçao afterwards.