"In Haiti, Earthquake Victims Left To Forage For Food"

ARI SHAPIRO, Host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.

STEVE INSKEEP, Host:

People in Haiti are struggling to meet one of the most needs of all. In addition to the lack of shelter, many have nothing to eat. International aid groups are passing out food, which is not reaching many of the people who need it most. We'll start our coverage this morning with NPR's John Burnett.

JOHN BURNETT: In St. Pierre Park in Petionville, the 15 members of Julienne Charles' family lounges under a bean pod tree while a daughter washes clothes. At this sprawling encampment the stench of dead bodies has been replaced with the stink of sewage.

CHARLES: (Foreign language spoken)

BURNETT: Back at St. Pierre Park, we met a tall Haitian American from Miramar, Florida named Hernandez Sicard. He was scoping out the camp to decide whether he should send for relief supplies from a charity he knows back home and he was shocked.

HERNANDEZ SICARD: I mean, look around you. People are scraping with the little that they have to sustain themselves. Nobody's helping. I think what you see on television right now is just propaganda.

BURNETT: Though his assessment may be harsh, we encountered a similar observation at the tent city at the Delmas catholic school. Dr. Robert Bristow has been in Haiti for two weeks with NYC Medics Disaster Relief Group. And he says he hasn't seen a single formal food distribution.

ROBERT BRISTOW: And even more telling, having been in post-disaster areas around the world, usually by this day, there are lots of children carrying high energy biscuits that are usually distributed by the WHO. You see children with them. You see wrappers. You actually see them being sold. And I haven't seen any of that yet.

BURNETT: What is that telling you?

BRISTOW: Well, it's telling me that there's not enough food aid getting here quick enough - just from my informal observation.

BURNETT: Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)

BURNETT: At the tent city at Le Mannois Catholic School in Petionville, food trucks from the Dominican Republic have visited this camp only three times in two weeks. An unemployed laborer named Mackenzie Destin sums it up this way.

MACKENZIE DESTIN: (Foreign language spoken)

BURNETT: John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.