Sydney-based Christian relief agency CNEC Partners International have confirmed that despite rioting, violence, and the death of a number of their link pastors, they are sending aid via their devastated partner congregations in earthquake-hit Haiti.
CEO Kim Vanden Hengel said CNEC Partners International has been providing long-term support through a local church umbrella network called the Haitian Calvary International Ministries on the island of La Gonave which has a population of 100,000 and is in the middle of earthquake zone.
It is currently estimated that in addition to the 200,000 people who have been killed, 300,000 other Haitians are in need of urgent medical attention and 3 million have been left homeless and starving.
"We are currently waiting for our partner ministry leader to report back on how much of his network still exists," Ms Vanden Hengel said. "We know that some churches are down and pastors killed."
Ms Vanden Hengel, who is also wife of the rector of Penshurst Anglican Church, said getting aid into Haiti has proved very difficult due to violence and rioting.
"Travel outside the capital is lethal and outside worse, so this is no easy task. At the moment, aid workers can only move around Port-au-Prince if accompanied by armed troops. Many attempts at food distribution or clinics are having to be abandoned because of rioting.
"The UN are doing airdrops to communities near the capital, as the only means of reaching them, but they have already observed deaths and injuries in the frenzy this causes and as the strong take what is meant for the needy. Aid experts are saying this is like nothing they have seen before. It is different in scale but even more so in nature from the Asian tsunami.
"Some smaller agencies are trucking aid in from the Dominican Republic but we have heard that some have been held at gunpoint and lost their trucks, money, passports and shoes.
Ms Vanden Hengel said CNEC's main contribution will come in the longer-term support of the population, and in the rebuilding.
"We plan to help in the restoration of our partners’ churches and educational ministry and in the redevelopment of those communities which those churches serve. We will be doing this in consultation with the many agencies who are going to be engaged."
CNEC (Christian Nationals’ Evangelism Council) is a mission and aid organisation founded by missionaries in China during WWII and which partners with local Christian organisations in developing regions.
