Thursday, January 21, 2010

US Military Operations Block Relief efforts in Haiti

This is an article I find very complicated. Basically in this article, the US military forces have taken over the Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti in an effort to help with the sudden disaster. The problem with this takeover is that doctors and other health providers are complaining of US forces denying humanitarian flights the permission to land. Most of these flights are flights with supplies needed to treat victims with crushed limbs and other infections. The two sides of the story is that, US forces are very concerned of the fact that since the earthquake, everybody is flying in to help, which to some extent is a great thing; however, it is making things very difficult because too many people are trying to fly in. The airport on the other hand, has only one runway and there are literally hundreds of flights trying to make it in; therefore they decided to give priority to US military flights and the flights that that they know and can identify have contents of Humanitarian supplies. On the side of the Doctors, they are complaining that most of the flights with the supplies are being redirected and these flights contain the things they need immediately to treat the victims. According to them, the delay in getting the supplies is causing them to amputate most of the victims in order to prevent the infections from spreading.
This is a conflict that is very tricky because both sides have a point, but the question here is how will they come to a decision of figuring things out to achieve the ultimate goal of helping the people in Haiti.

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