IOM continues to deliver non-food items (NFI) and water to affected
communities throughout Haiti as part of its responsibilities for
the coordination of the international community's efforts on
emergency shelter and the provision of non-food support.

To date, IOM and its partners have assisted more than 15,000
families with distributions of hygiene kits, kitchen sets, plastic
sheeting and water containers.

More than 100,000 persons are estimated to have been displaced
by floods in the wake of tropical storm Hanna, but shelters are now
seeing the number of persons decrease steadily except in Gonaives
where IOM teams report that some 50,000 persons are still in
shelters in conditions that do not meet most minimal standards.

Access to water and sanitation remains a major concern –
the displaced have no access to any sewage or waste disposal
systems, and many parts of Gonaives remain under water more than
two weeks after the initial rise of water levels to the city's
rooftops.  Stagnating waters all over the city have also
caused a multiplication of malaria cases (approximately 100 new
cases reported daily), as well as the high prevalence of skin
infections and water-borne diseases (diarrhoea is affecting as much
as 50 per cent of those living in shelters).

As water levels in about a third of the city are only now just
starting to decrease, damage assessments are underway.  IOM,
in coordination with authorities and non-governmental partners,
began identifying shelter sites in need of immediate
improvements.

It is estimated that several thousand houses have sustained
damage beyond repair, indicating that the number of those who will
remain displaced will number in the thousands in the middle of a
deadly hurricane season which lasts until the end of November.

IOM and its UN partners have recommended that a survey be
carried out amongst the shelter population to determine areas of
origin, willingness to return/relocate, and livelihoods as a first
step in the early recovery stage and parallel to the ongoing
humanitarian emergency.

"IOM plays an essential coordination role in supporting
authorities with their efforts to continuously track displacement
volumes and patterns," explains Vincent Houver, IOM Chief of
Mission in Haiti.  "We are also focusing on early recovery
activities by encouraging those who are able to return to their
neighbourhoods to do so and contribute to the clean-up efforts.
Many parts of the city are covered in mud and other waste. 
Much will need to be done if the international humanitarian
response is to materialize at levels commensurate with the level of
damage and harm caused by tropical storms Fay, Gustav, Hanna and
Hurricane Ike."

Community members are being recruited through labour intensive
job creation programmes and provided with tools, which they will be
able to keep.  IOM has been implementing similar programmes
over the past four years through community stabilization and
conflict prevention activities in the country's main urban
centres.

IOM has appealed for US$ 13 million as part of the UN flash
appeal which was launched this week. To date, contributions have
been received from the United States Agency for International
Development (Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance), the Swiss
Development Cooperation, the Canadian International Development
Agency, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA).

For more information, please contact:

Monique Van Hoof

IOM Port au Prince

Tel: +509 3702 38 47

E-mail: "mailto:mvanhoof@iom.int">mvanhoof@iom.int