Haiti's children on their own on shattered streets
By VIVIAN SEQUERA and BEN FOX, Associated Press Writers Vivian Sequera And Ben Fox, Associated Press Writers – 36 mins ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The children with no names lay mute in a corner of the General Hospital grounds Tuesday, three among thousands of boys and girls set adrift in the wake of Haiti's earthquake.
"Hi, Joe, how are you?" the American doctor tried, using a pet name the staff had given a boy of about 11.
There was no response.
"Joe," "Baby Sebastian" and the girl who didn't even have a nickname hadn't spoken or cried since they were brought in over the previous 48 hours — by neighbors, passers-by, no one knows who. "Sebastian," only a week old, was said to have been taken from the arms of his dead mother.
They're lucky: Haitian-born Dr. Wisdom Price and the staff were treating them for infections and other ailments. Hundreds of thousands of hungry and thirsty children are scattered among Port-au-Prince's squatter camps of survivors, without protection against disease or child predators — often with nobody to care for them.
"There's an estimated 1 million unaccompanied or orphaned children or children who lost one parent," said Kate Conradt, a spokeswoman for the aid group Save the Children. "They are extremely vulnerable."
The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, has established a special tent camp for girls and boys who, one way or another, were separated from their parents in the Jan. 12 quake, and who are in danger of falling prey to child traffickers and other abusers. The Connecticut-based Save the Children has set up "Child Spaces" in 13 makeshift settlements. The Red Cross and others, meanwhile, are working to reunite families.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake
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