Port Au Prince

U.S. troops take up posts around the Parliament building and City Hall in Port-au-Prince a day before Haitian lawmakers are to discuss an amnesty bill.U.S. forces suffer their first fatality. An American soldier is found shot to death in what is called an apparent suicide.About 2,000 people riot at a relief feeding center in central Port-au-Prince. The rioters flee when American military police drive up, then resume looting when the MPs leave.The United States urges Security Council members to lift U.N. sanctions against Haiti once President Aristide returns to power.

Six months ago, when the earthquake hit Haiti, approximately 2 million people were living in the metropolitan area of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. (The country's total population is almost 10 million.) The capital city was overcrowded. Haitians have always moved from the outlying departments to Port-au-Prince because it's the only place in the country with jobs and most basic services. The biggest employer in Haiti, the Haitian government, has most of its offices in Port-au-Prince.

PETIT-GOAVE, Haiti -- Hundreds of Haitians drowned early Wednesday morning when a dilapidated and overcrowded ferry carrying people and animals sank in a rainstorm near here.No one learned of the tragedy until survivors began washing up on shore late Wednesday, and news did not reach Port-au-Prince until yesterday morning. The ferry, the Neptune, was carrying about 100 children who were believed to have died. Authorities said the sinking was unconnected with the recent exodus of boat people.

Today in New York, donors will be asked to provide $11.5 billion to help Haiti recover from the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. Since the U.S. government has already provided more than $700 million in assistance -- a number that will likely rise -- some might ask: Why should we give more? To these skeptics, I have two responses. First, more is getting done than you think. And second, more needs to be done than you can imagine. Nearly two months ago, I left my home in Montgomery County bound for Port-au-Prince to lead the relief and recovery efforts of the international aid agency Mercy Corps.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Thousands of would-be refugees have flocked to U.S. government offices here to apply for political asylum in the weeks since the military thwarted exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's homecoming.The number of daily applicants has nearly quadrupled at the Port-au-Prince headquarters of the U.S. political-refugee program, a diplomat familiar with emigration issues said. The situation there is "frantic," he said.The flood began about two weeks after military leaders who overthrew Mr. Aristide in 1991 refused to step down as promised and allow his scheduled Oct. 30 return.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The billboards declaring the inevitable went up even before the first vote had been cast. They boast a huge photograph of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide with the simple and foregone declaration in Creole: "Feb. 7, 2001. Peace in the Head. Peace in the Belly." The date refers to the presidential inauguration that, depending on one's point of view, is seen as Aristide's appointment with destiny or infamy. He is the only real candidate in today's presidential election, because almost all opposition political parties, civic groups and international observers are sitting out the contest after flawed vote-counting in May's legislative elections gave Aristide's Lavalas Party an overwhelming majority in Parliament.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - With a growing rebel uprising closing in and security forces nowhere in sight, Haiti's capital collapsed yesterday into a chaos of street executions, arson and looting. Masked gunmen patrolling the city in pickups fired into the air while looters raided dockside warehouses. Pistol-waving youths at downtown roadblocks robbed foreigners of money, cell phones and, in some cases, their cars. Bodies, some mutilated, lay in the streets. More than three weeks into an armed uprising that has quickly seized the northern half of the country, it appeared that an increasingly isolated President Jean-Bertrand Aristide finally had unleashed his chimeres - Creole for "monsters" - in a desperate last bid to remain in power.

Ten-year-old Herdine reacted quickly when the ground beneath Port-au-Prince began shaking Jan. 12. At home with her baby brother, she raced to his crib, scooped him up and ran outside seconds before the family house collapsed. Since the earthquake, Herdine has been smiling like a typical girl her age, said Robin Contino of Catholic Relief Services: "She just knows she's happy, she has her brother, she's alive." "But," Contino added, "she doesn't want to close her eyes." Contino, a clinical social worker, was dispatched to Haiti to address the emotional trauma of the Baltimore-based relief agency's large staff, which includes 300 Haitians and a core group of expatriates.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- When the sun goes down, small flames flicker to life and cast pale orange shadows. Across vast reaches of the city, there will be no other light until dawn.Electricity is in short supply in Haiti, jeopardizing the country's economic recovery and the goodwill of a population wearily acquainted with the troubles of darkness.The work needed to turn on the lights is a test of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's new government and a measure of the enormous obstacles faced by reformers who seek to overhaul Haiti's backward economy.

Ten-year-old Herdine reacted quickly when the ground beneath Port-au-Prince began shaking Jan. 12. At home with her baby brother, she raced to his crib, scooped him up and ran outside seconds before the family house collapsed. Since the earthquake, Herdine has been smiling like a typical girl her age, said Robin Contino of Catholic Relief Services: "She just knows she's happy, she has her brother, she's alive." "But," Contino added, "she doesn't want to close her eyes." Contino, a clinical social worker, was dispatched to Haiti to address the emotional trauma of the Baltimore-based relief agency's large staff, which includes 300 Haitians and a core group of expatriates.

Ten-year-old Herdine reacted quickly when the ground beneath Port-au-Prince began shaking Jan. 12. At home with her baby brother, she raced to his crib, scooped him up and ran outside seconds before the family house collapsed. Since the earthquake, Herdine has been smiling like a typical girl her age, said Robin Contino of Catholic Relief Services: "She just knows she's happy, she has her brother, she's alive." "But," Contino added, "she doesn't want to close her eyes." Contino, a clinical social worker, was dispatched to Haiti to address the emotional trauma of the Baltimore-based relief agency's large staff, which includes 300 Haitians and a core group of expatriates.

Ten-year-old Herdine reacted quickly when the ground beneath Port-au-Prince began shaking Jan. 12. At home with her baby brother, she raced to his crib, scooped him up and ran outside seconds before the family house collapsed. Since the earthquake, Herdine has been smiling like a typical girl her age, said Robin Contino of Catholic Relief Services: "She just knows she's happy, she has her brother, she's alive." "But," Contino added, "she doesn't want to close her eyes." Contino, a clinical social worker, was dispatched to Haiti to address the emotional trauma of the Baltimore-based relief agency's large staff, which includes 300 Haitians and a core group of expatriates.

Michael and Monica Simonsen, the Baltimore couple who have been trying to adopt a Haitian orphan toddler nearly all his life, were scheduled to fly home with him Tuesday evening. Michael Simonsen traveled to Haiti hoping to bring home Stanley Hermane, a 21-month-old who had been at an orphanage for most of his life. Simonsen and a couple of other adoptive fathers were able to bring seven Haitian orphans to the U.S. - far fewer than they expected - from Port-au-Prince early Monday morning.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Life is slowly creeping back to normal after weeks of violent turmoil in this Caribbean capital. This is normal in the teeming slum of Cite Soleil: heaps of refuse in the street. Open gullies for sewers. Ramshackle homes built from a flimsy patchwork of metal and plywood. This is normal for Maryse Blain Bruno: hawking drinking glasses and teacups on the sidewalk. Fending off loan collectors from the bank. Struggling to feed three children on her own, her husband killed by thugs 2 1/2 years ago. It is a measure of just how bad things have gotten in Haiti, just how abject the misery has become, that "normal" here is a harsh reality of unrelenting poverty and squalor - and that residents long to return to it. A new set of leaders has taken over the government after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile Feb. 29 by an armed revolt.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - First word came as the shrill morning calls of roosters were echoing yesterday off the walls of shantytowns and villas in this still slumbering Caribbean capital city. Within minutes, there were explosions of celebratory gunfire, happy cries of "ca y est!" - "it's over!" - and outbreaks of looting by mobs. In the wealthy hillside suburb of Petionville, scores of boys and young men sacked an abandoned police station, carrying away police helmets and shields, thermos bottles and battered file cabinets.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - After a U.S. appeal for an end to violence by supporters of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Arisitide as well as by armed rebels threatening to attack here, both factions stood back yesterday from a looming clash in this terrified capital. Nonetheless, the White House sharply escalated its criticism of Aristide yesterday, suggesting in the bluntest terms yet that he should surrender his office to restore peace. "The long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's doing," the White House statement said, and "his own actions have called into question his fitness to remain in office."

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - With a growing rebel uprising closing in and security forces nowhere in sight, Haiti's capital collapsed yesterday into a chaos of street executions, arson and looting. Masked gunmen patrolling the city in pickups fired into the air while looters raided dockside warehouses. Pistol-waving youths at downtown roadblocks robbed foreigners of money, cell phones and, in some cases, their cars. Bodies, some mutilated, lay in the streets. More than three weeks into an armed uprising that has quickly seized the northern half of the country, it appeared that an increasingly isolated President Jean-Bertrand Aristide finally had unleashed his chimeres - Creole for "monsters" - in a desperate last bid to remain in power.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Every Wednesday, several hundred poor women wearing white dresses and blue head scarves gather outside this capital city's cathedral to pray for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They belt out songs with religious fervor, wave their hands in the air with rosary beads wrapped around their wrists, and plead for divine intervention in favor of their beloved president. "We need peace, that's why every Wednesday we come here to talk with God," says Chantel Brown, a straw hat over her blue head scarf blocking the midday sun. "The president we have here is very popular.