Aid groups trying to reach Haitian flood victims urge troops to keep offering scarce helicopters

Friday, June 11th 2004, 6:00 am

By: News On 6

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ With thousands of flood victims in Haiti awaiting food and drinking water, aid agencies said they are struggling to reach isolated villages and urged U.S.-led peacekeepers to keep offering helicopters for relief shipments.

More than a week after troops stopped ferrying shipments by helicopter, the forces made an exception Thursday, dispatching a U.S. Army Chinook on three trips to the hard-hit southern town of Mapou with more than 16 tons of food and water, officials said.

``The decision of the multinational forces to suspend flights to Mapou posed a big problem to relief agencies, especially the World Food Program,'' said Max Bonnel of a U.N. disaster assessment team.

Thursday's shipment of aid from the World Food Program should be enough for 740 families for a week, WFP spokeswoman Anne Poulsen said.

By all accounts, thousands more need aid in an area where roads were destroyed by landslides.

After the deadly floods two and a half weeks ago, U.S. and Canadian troops made regular helicopter trips, but declared the emergency period over last week and said they had to conserve helicopter hours.

The forces also were convinced aid agencies had other means of transport, said U.S. Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan. The U.S.-led force, which arrived after the Feb. 29 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is to hand over command this month to a U.N. force.

With help from the British and U.S. governments, the United Nations ordered a rented cargo helicopter from Venezuela, but several days later it still hadn't arrived _ prompting the U.S. troops to help Thursday.

The World Food Program has rented only one light helicopter so far, and it isn't capable of carrying heavy loads so it's being used to assess damage, Poulsen said.

Lapan said Thursday's flights were an exception and did not mark a resumption of regular military flights. The U.S.-led force says it also needs helicopters for patrols and transporting troops.

The London-based charity Oxfam is urging the United Nations to help provide helicopters. It says aid agencies are unable to reach tens of thousands of people in desperate need.

``To move within the affected area, you have to move by helicopter,'' said Fernanda Castejon, an Oxfam official from Guatemala. Without them, aid groups are reaching remote areas by boat, horse, foot, and occasionally truck on remaining sections of road.

The floods left more than 3,300 people dead or missing in Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic. In Mapou, aid workers say receding waters still partly cover houses and bodies are still being found.