Activities of Secretary-General in Haiti, 14 March
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon travelled to Haiti on 14 March 2010. During the one-day visit, he sought to assess conditions on the ground two months after an earthquake levelled much of the capital Port-au-Prince, killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 101 United Nations staff members.
Upon arrival, the Secretary-General received a briefing from the United Nations country team, led by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet, in his capacity as Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti.
The Secretary-General then met with Haitian President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive at the temporary headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). They discussed post-quake challenges remaining to be addressed, including the planned relocation of internally displaced Haitians to safer camps ahead of the rainy and hurricane seasons, as well as the need to better coordinate international aid delivery. They also discussed the 16-17 March Needs Assessment Conference in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, which is to lay the ground for the 31 March International Donors’ Conference to be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
That meeting was followed by a joint press conference with President Préval.
The Secretary-General ended his visit with a tour of the temporary camp for the internally displaced victims of the earthquake at a former golf course in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. There he held informal conversations with camp residents and female United Nations police officers protecting female camp residents against sexual violence. He also spoke with representatives of local and international non-governmental organizations, including those championed by United States actors Sean Penn and Maria Bello, both of whom were present at the camp.
The Secretary-General and his delegation returned to New York in the early hours of 15 March.