Refugees tell tales of horror
Mothers scrape out their babies' nappies so they may be used again.
At the New Orleans' Superdome stadium, refugees describe piles of
faeces, knee-high, after the toilets overflowed and people were forced
to relieve themselves on staircases.
At least seven bodies are scattered outside the city's convention
centre.
People sheltering at New Orleans' main refuges say they have been
robbed of their humanity.
"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as
he pointed at a woman who lay dead in her wheelchair outside the
convention centre.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," 25-year-old Taffany Smith
told the Los Angeles Times, cradling her three-week-old son in the
Superdome stadium.
Up to 20,000 refugees from the devastation wreaked by Hurricane
Katrina have been corralled into each building.
This is where they were told to come, but the authorities were
woefully unprepared for the arrival of such numbers, who include the
very young, the very old, and the very infirm.
Pervading stench
For days they have been without adequate electricity, sanitation, or
food supplies waiting to be taken from what many describe as a scene
from hell.
We got dead bodies sitting next to us for days. I feel like I am
going to die
Thomas Jessie
All who have been inside the Superdome speak of the pervading stench
of human waste.
Amid the deteriorating conditions at both refuges, horrific stories
are emerging.
At the Superdome there were two reports of rape, one involving a
child, while police at the convention centre said there had been
similar reported incidents.
Others described what it was like to live among the dead.
"We got dead bodies sitting next to us for days. I feel like I am
going to die. People are going to kill you for water," Thomas Jessie,
a 31-year-old roofer, told the AFP news agency after spending the
night in the convention centre.
Keep on coming
And the slow evacuation has only contributed to tensions. The head of
the city's emergency operations, Terry Ebbert, warned it had become an
"incredibly explosive situation".
"This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said.
At the Superdome, fighting and gunshots broke out in the long
desperate line of people waiting for the chance to board one of the
school buses deployed to take them away.
Medical evacuations from the Superdome on Thursday were temporarily
disrupted after a gun shot was fired at a rescue helicopter.
Meanwhile people continued to arrive, many wading through water to get
there. Their homes destroyed, they have nowhere else to go.
By Thursday evening, 11 hours after the evacuation began, the stadium
had 10,000 more people than it did at dawn.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4207944.stm
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