26 malnourished children die in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — At least 26 severely malnourished Haitian children have died in recent days, and aid groups fear many more will perish unless help comes quickly.

At least 65 other severely malnourished children have been treated, said Max Cosci of Doctors Without Borders.

Hunger contributed to deaths probably caused by diarrhea, fever and other conditions over a two-week period, but medical teams arrived too late to determine how each child died, Cosci said.

One evacuee, a 7-year-old girl abandoned by her family, died while being treated, Cosci said.

“The situation is extremely, extremely fragile and dangerous,” he said.

At a Doctors Without Borders hospital here, about 10 emaciated children with swollen stomachs and sunken eyes were being given emergency care. Several had swollen faces, typical of kwashiorkor, a protein-deficiency disorder.

Mackenson Duclair, 5, teetered around the concrete floor on broomstick legs. He weighed 19.8 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk. Doctors weighed a girl with a wide yellow bow in her hair, her emaciated arms and legs dangling from a strap attached to a scale.

Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, has been hit by spiraling food costs, which resulted in riots last spring, and hurricanes and tropical storms that crippled food production.

U.N. World Food Program spokeswoman Hilary Clarke said she feared many more may have died in isolated parts of Haiti.