One picture, printed in Tuesday's N&O, spoke to everything, to the starvation, to the despair, to the utter vulnerability of the 2 million Haitians who on every day, do not get enough to eat. Venecia Louis, 3 years old when the picture was taken by the Associated Press in November, was one of them. And she still is, despite the greater interest in helping to stockpile food for the hungry and at the same time, to encourage Haiti's farmers to grow more for their own people.
Haiti seems for many of its people a place of hopelessness. Often hit by storms that knock out homes and cut off roads to more remote areas, thus making it difficult to deliver aid when it is needed most, the country is locked in a never-ending struggle against poverty and the elements.
Now is the season of storms. Winds and rains are coming. The United Nations is trying to improve the food situation, and there are physicians in the country from Doctors Without Borders (the ones who helped save Venecia).
But there remain problems with getting to where the people in the most danger are. Four tropical storms last year left some communities isolated. Some 800 people were killed. And 26 children died of starvation or malnutrition because they were cut off from civilization.
The U.N. is focused on the country, and so should be private citizens around the world who cannot stand the thought of so many children suffering so deeply. Helping them is an obligation to humankind.
To read the complete editorial, visit The (Raleigh) News & Observer.