This report has been written on Friday, 15th of January 2010, 11pm
Since this afternoon things have changed to some extent and we find ourselves here in a new situation. Bit by bit we received more reports and emails from the capital which caused that we realized our own situation differently. Rumours about pillages and looting in Port-au-Prince are now more or less confirmed. International media reported on destroyed prisons and enumerated 5000 inmates who had been freed by the current events. Together with a non measurable amount of people searching desperately for water and food this forms a highly explosive mixture which will spread all over the country. Up to now, resources of all kind have become scarce of unavailable in the capital. This may provoke a considerable exodus from there during the next days. Hinche, where we still stay is located approximately 100 miles away and it is the second major town on the way to northeast (so-called route nationale 3). As we experienced yet a massive influx from affected people at the hospital here (we had a visit this afternoon), it is more than probable that we might face those kind of persons as well. There is a lot of food already in Port-au-Prince, but organizations do not cope with the distribution and this forces people to leave. By the way, even radio stations are suggesting this to the population in the hope of levying the local situation there, and they even started to broadcast requiems between the vocal interventions. A really odd atmosphere…
So what is the consequence for us now? We had been in touch with our country office today. They told us German embassy had called any German citizen in Haiti who is not urgendtly needed in the framework of relief action should better leave the country. As I earlier told, we desperately try to engage ourselves in some senseful action, but it remains very difficult. All attention is concentrated on Port-au-Prince. At first sight this might be intelligent but one could forget that all the other regions around are working as a substitute right now because people flee. We had some discussion with the hospital’s director this afternoon. After that we tried to establish contact to German embassy and several organizations in order to organize medical and structural supply. We could not give them a positive answer up to now, but we hope to get some information about the possibilities of providing aid. That might work through a small airplane coming from the capital or by roads from Dominican Republic. We are hoping for a positive end in that matter since the hospital is getting more and more crowded, lots of operation have to be done urgently, current may last till tomorrow evening and medication is already a huge problem. At the same time we had to see that even the black market for fuel and gasoline, where prizes had risen on a factor of 400% supply ended this evening. There is actually no more gallon of fuel in town. People are still peaceful but one can noticed that everybody is getting nervous about what will happen the next days. Nevertheless we try to make a good job cooperating with the hospital. But this is also the reason why prepare ourselves to evacuation. Depending on how things are developing here and on how instructions may be given from the country office it is possible that we flee at some point of time. A strategic problem is the fact that the frontier is closed on Sunday and we will not leave tomorrow (Saturday). So we are arranging everything to be ready on Monday. From then we will see at which point it will be necessary to go. As I said earlier, up to now everything is rather cool here (what a cynism to use this word in such a context…) but we realize that it is anything but stable and even myself who wanted to go to Port-au-Prince two days ago changed minds. I am getting a bit scared because all that is happening here becomes very difficult to forecast. I will stop at this point and try to provide more information as soon as possible.