Finding housing for 1 million homeless people after Haiti's January 12 earthquake is a top European Union priority, dpa cited a Spanish senior official as saying today. International Cooperation Secretary of State Soraya Rodriguez, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, spoke at an informal meeting of EU development ministers in Granja de San Ildefonso near the Spanish city of Segovia. More than 1 million people who had lost their homes needed to be lodged "adequately" before the rainy season, Rodriguez said. She also expressed concern that some more buildings might collapse under the rain. The EU, the United Nations and the United States were due to discuss plans to lodge the victims and to improve aid coordination at the meeting, the guest list of which included US Haiti relief coordinator Rajiv Shah and UN Haiti mission head Edmund Mulet. Speaking in Leon, Haiti's ambassador to Spain, Yolette Azor- Charles, decried the fact that houses or tents had not yet been supplied for the homeless. A new urban model was needed for overcrowded Port-au-Prince, where only the newest public and some residential buildings had survived the earthquake, the ambassador explained. Azor-Charles estimated that up to 200 Haitians were leaving the country daily, despite Port-au-Prince airport being closed. The EU meeting was scheduled to conclude on Thursday.
