UN appeals for tents for Haiti as rains begin

(LA GRANJA) - The United Nations made an urgent appeal Thursday for tents for Haiti to house tens of thousands of people left homeless by last month's earthquake.

"What worries us most right now is the topic of shelter, of providing a roof, now that the rainy season is about to start, and the topic of health," said Edmond Mulet, the acting head of the UN mission in Haiti.

"We need latrines, we need field tents, we need plastic sheets so that people can cover themselves," said Mulet, whose predecessor was killed in the January 12 quake.

"The rains are coming, I don't think we are going to be able to shelter all these people in time," he added at a meeting of EU development ministers in La Granja in central Spain.

More than a million Haitians are still homeless and living in squalid camps following the January 12 earthquake which claimed more than 217,000 lives on the Caribbean island of a little over nine million people.

Heavy rain fell early on Thursday in Haiti's capital, signalling the challenges that lie ahead with the tropical rainy season about to begin and the Caribbean hurricane season starting on June 1.

The overnight rain worsened already squalid conditions in the makeshift camps that dot the capital, and which aid officials warn are becoming a major health risk.

Mulet said the global community must change its way of working in the quake-hit country, the poorest nation in the Americas.

"We have been present in Haiti for decades, and on the ground there is little that we can be proud of," the Guatemalan diplomat said.

Earthquake aid would be more effective if assisting nations and aid agencies focused on specific tasks or regions, he added.

"There is much goodwill, but many want to do a bit of everything," he said, adding that the dimensions of the tragedy would require a long-term aid commitment.

"It is not a usual catastrophe. In Haiti everything that refers to humanitarian aid will last a long time."