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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Haiti, 70 days later

In Haiti, the survivors of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck about two and a half months ago continue to struggle, with a few signs of hope as international assistance is beginning to make measurable progress, some international debt is being forgiven, and some businesses and institutions start to come back to life. In a country still mourning the loss of a now-estimated 230,000 citizens (on par with the 2004 Indian Ocean quake), over one million people remain housed in makeshift tent cities, uncertain about their future or security. According to a recent draft summary of the Haitian government's damage and needs assessment, the country will need $11.5 billion to rebuild. Collected here are a handful of recent photographs from Haiti, a country still in need.

1. A boy watches heavy equipment clear rubble from a destroyed church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on February 27, 2010. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
2. A woman walks downtown in earthquake-torn Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
3. Junol Morancy, age 21, does his daily physical therapy session with therapist Guy Thomas at the General Hospital March 1, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Thomas is a Haitian physical therapist working with Handicap International to help rehabilitate some of the thousands of Haitians who were injured or lost limbs during the earthquake in January. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
4. A view of Delmas 33 area is seen in Port-au-Prince, Haiti February 24, 2010. Haiti's government and its foreign relief partners plan to start "decompressing" earthquake-stricken Port-au-Prince by clearing rubble to allow displaced families to return home or be temporarily resettled, Haitian and U.N. officials said. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
5. Elvilhomme Desboules's face is covered in dust while digging in rocky soil to prepare for the burial of about 30 unclaimed and unidentified earthquake victims February 25, 2010 in Titayen, Haiti. About a dozen grave diggers work each week to bury the dead from the Port-au-Prince General Hospital in the same area where tens of thousands of people were buried in mass graves after last month's earthquake. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
6. Women work at the DKDR Haiti garment assembly factory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Feb. 19, 2010. The international community and business leaders are preparing to implement a pre-earthquake plan to expand the garment assembly sector for a country in urgent need of building it's economy. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
7. A girl smiles inside a makeshift tent in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince February 28, 2010. Seasonal rains and hurricanes spell trouble for Haiti in the best of times, but with hundreds of thousands of people living in flimsy makeshift shelters after last month's earthquake, this year the dangers are much greater. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
8. A woman walks with an umbrella at a homeless earthquake survivors camp during heavy rains in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
9. A Haitian Voodooist prepares a VeVe, a drawing representing the Luo spirits, before a ceremony in a temple in Cite Soleil, a slum of Port-au-Prince on March 6, 2010. About half of Haiti's population is believed to practice voodoo in some form, though many are thought to also follow other religious beliefs at the same time. The religion -- whose practitioners often use the vodou spelling as opposed to the Westernized version -- evolved out of beliefs slaves from West Africa brought with them to Haiti. (EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)
10. Haitian Voodooists shield their heads with metal chairs after their ceremony for earthquake victims came under attack from a mob of Christian residents of the Ti Ayiti neighborhood February 23, 2010 in Cite' Soleil, Haiti. The Voodooists were run out of the central pavilion under a hail of rocks and all of the ceremonial items they left behind were destroyed and burned by the mob. Although a police station was built across the street from the notorious slum, no police appeared to disperse the crowd or protect the worshipers. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
11. People destroy objects that were to be used in a voodoo ceremony in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)
12. A dentist with NGO Island Impact Ministries works in a provisional camp in Port-au-Prince March 20, 2010. International donors are ready to provide $3.8 billion over 18 months to help Haiti rebuild after its devastating January 12 earthquake, experts and officials preparing a high-level donors conference said. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
13. People wait in line to get bottled water and plastic sheeting at an aid distribution operation set up outside of a camp for homeless earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince, Friday, Feb. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
14. Boys plays with their kites in a slum of Port-au-Prince on February 16, 2010. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
15. A man, who was injured in last month's earthquake, wears a marked bandage on his head at at the Sacre Coeur field hospital in Port-au-Prince Thursday Feb. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
16. A boy looks at the ruins of his Fort National neighborhood in Port-au-Prince March 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Matthew Bigg)
17. A premature baby, named Fred Jr., is carried to a scale to be weighed at the Project MediShare field hospital on the grounds of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport February 20, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
18. Duveis Yca waits for a hydrating beverage being distributed to young earthquake survivors living on the roof of an evangelist church in the Canape Vert neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on Sunday, March 14, 2010. Lafortune Renette, a hospital security guard, says she and her neighbors are helping about 100 children, including 50 orphans, by giving them shelter under a tarp on the church's roof and finding food at distribution points, but have not been able to locate food aid, like rice and beans, for the past week and have been surviving on crackers and water. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
19. People walk past the earthquake-destroyed Iron Market along the Grand Rue March 1, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
20. A female patient of the Haitian government's Mars and Kline Psychiatric Center who escaped during January 12, 2010 earthquake remains handcuffed at a hall of the center in downtown Port-au-Prince on February 24, 2010. The Haitian government's Mars and Kline Psychiatric Center was founded in 1958, which might be when its wards received their last coat of paint, and was in a desperate situation even before the January 12 catastrophe. Now, many of its patients have gone off to fend for themselves and its courtyard has become a makeshift refugee camp for local families left homeless by the quake and for a handful of wandering mental patients. (EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images)
21. Rebecca Michel Francois, 9, recently arrived in Mattapan, Massachusetts from Haiti, plays with other children during a snow flurry outside the Charles H. Taylor Elementary School in Mattapan on March 3, 2010. (Globe Staff/Essdras M Suarez)
22. A man wears a suit and a tie as he heads out towards Sunday services at a Baptist church in Port-au-Prince, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
23. A boy eats grains of rice with his hands in his bed during breakfast at the Wings of Hope, a home for abandoned children with severe disabilities in Fermate, Haiti on March 5th, 2010. (Globe Staff/Bill Greene)
24. Joseph Dieujuste reacts as a mechanical shovel removes the wooden roof that fell on top of him in a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince, Friday, March 12, 2010. Dieujuste and at least two other men were injured while scavenging inside a quake-damaged government building. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
25. A boy poses for a photo during the inauguration of a school that will be run by an Israeli NGO at a camp for earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince, Friday, March 5, 2010. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
26. From left, former President and U.N. special envoy for Haiti Bill Clinton, Haiti's President Rene Preval (beside Clinton), and former President George W. Bush arrive at the earthquake damaged Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, Monday, March. 22, 2010. The two former presidents were visiting Haiti to assess recovery needs after they were tapped by President Barack Obama to spearhead U.S. fundraising in response to the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
27. Dennis Acton sorts through donated prosthetic legs at New England Brace Company in Manchester, New Hampshire on March 11th, 2010. The prostheses will be disassembled and used for parts and brought to Haiti for amputee victims of the earthquake. (Globe Staff/Bill Greene)
28. A man weeps as he prays during a national day of mourning outside the national palace in Port-au-Prince, Friday, Feb. 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
29. A girl jumps rope in the La Saline schoolyard in La Saline slum in Port-au-Prince, Monday, March 15, 2010. Community leaders organized a day of entertainment for the students of La Saline school while it is closed for lack of teachers. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
30. An amputee sits in the general hospital as he waits for medical attention in Port-au-Prince March 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
31. A 21-year-old woman who did not wish to be identified speaks with The Associated Press in Port-au-Prince on March 12, 2010. Women, girls and children as young as 2 years old, already traumatized by the loss of homes and loved ones in Haiti's earthquake, now are falling victim to rapists in sprawling and unmanageable tent cities that have become home to hundreds of thousands of people. "They grabbed me, put their hands over my mouth and then the three of them took turns", said the woman who was raped by three men while she went to use the toilet into the darkness of a makeshift tent camp. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
32. A child cries as he is questioned by police officer Carl Henry Boucher after he witnessed a gunfight in La Saline slum in Port-au-Prince, Tuesday, March 16, 2010. According to police at the scene, two police officers were ambushed and killed by suspected gang members who police believe may have escaped from prison after the Jan. 12 earthquake. A third man was also killed, who police believe was a bystander. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
33. A child runs away from fumigation smoke at a makeshift camp for earthquake survivors in downtown Port-au-Prince, Tuesday, March 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
34. Earthquake survivors play dominoes at the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince March 18, 2010. The man is covered in clothespins as a penalty for losing multiple hands of the game. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
35. A skull and human bones lie amid the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince, Friday, March 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
36. A ball passes in front of the Sun as people play soccer at a camp set up for earthquake survivors left homeless during sunset in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, March 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
37. A man accused of stealing goods in a marketplace is made to lie down in the rubble of a collapsed building along the Grand Rue March 1, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The man was beaten but eventually released when his accuser realized the police were not coming any time soon. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
38. A Bridesmaid and a boy enter a partially destroyed Catholic church in Port-au-Prince March 19, 2010. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
39. The hands of Fabien Josephe smooth out an aluminum pan at a makeshift foundry in the Cite Soleil neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, March 20, 2010. Recycling micro-industries have received a new impulse with all the debris left behind last Jan. 12 earthquake's aftermath. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
40. Jean Bertrand, 19, kicks a soccer ball during a physical therapy session with Handicap International on the grounds of the new Doctors Without Borders hospital March 1, 2010 in Sarthe, Haiti. The new hospital is under construction and will have beds for more than 300 people once it is finished. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)