CORAIL-CESSELESSE, Haiti, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Eight months after Haiti's earthquake, 1.3 million people are living in makeshift tent camps without adequate food or water, a watchdog human rights group said.
A report made public Monday by the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti decried conditions and called for more international assistance.
"We Have Been Forgotten: Conditions in Haiti's Displacement Camps Eight Months After the Earthquake," documents the desperation in Haiti's camps and recommended a "rights-based approach to relief and reconstruction".
Conditions in some of the camps is declining, an attorney for IJDH said. A New York Times report said thousands of refugees are writing emotional pleas begging for assistance.
"The basic needs of residents must be prioritized immediately," IJDH attorney Nicole Phillips said of the report she co-wrote.
The International Organization for Migration placed suggestion boxes in the camps, and letters placed in them put a human face on the suffering, a spokesman said in the New York Times report.
UPI
