U.S. troops prepare for hand-over to U.N.

Only a fraction of the planned U.N. force has arrived in the flooded nation.
MAPOU, Haiti (AP) -- U.S. troops deployed to Haiti during a bloody revolt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will be leaving in the midst of another crisis as the nation tries to recover from deadly floods.
The official American hand-over to a U.N. force is set for Tuesday, but only a fraction of the planned 8,000 troops and police for the U.N. force have arrived, and none have brought helicopters needed to help flood victims. So most U.S. troops will stay until the end of June. After that, fewer than a dozen will participate in the U.N. force.
Hurrying to help people in submerged villages after floods killed more than 1,400 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the U.S. troops control the few available helicopters and have become key to getting aid to inaccessible areas. In the past few days, they have airlifted more than 100,000 pounds of food and drinking water and evacuated the injured.
For some of the 1,900 U.S. troops -- 1,500 of them Marines -- the end to their Haiti mission is a bittersweet moment.
"On the one hand, we'll leave with a sense of accomplishment," said U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, spokesman for the U.S.-led multinational task force that was sent to secure and stabilize the nation. "On the other hand, there's so much this place needs."
Entire villages gone
Floods and mudslides brought on by three days of heavy rain wiped out entire villages in Haiti's southeast corner around a farming community called Mapou, a week before the hurricane season begins Tuesday.
Desperate Mapou survivors have been stealing food aid from one another. As military helicopters swooped down every 10 minutes with more aid Sunday, some 1,000 Haitians stood waiting in the 90-degree heat.
"People have been hiding in cornfields and jumping each other at night to get rice and other food," said U.S. Marine Cpl. Scott Rossman, 21, of Altoona, Pa. "But at the end of the day at least they have food."
With hills denuded of most trees, similar disasters threaten other towns, straining the U.N. force's original task of tending to Haiti's other daunting needs.
"The short-term solution is for the U.N. and others to get their own helicopters," Lapan said. "We're just in the start of the rainy season. We could get through this immediate crisis and they could have something even worse."
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