TEN US Christians face possible child trafficking charges for trying to take a group of children out of quake-hit Haiti, where the death toll has swelled to more than 200000.

Yesterday, the case against the missionaries cast a shadow over the international relief effort in Haiti, where many survivors are still desperate for food and water, triggering angry protests on the rubble- strewn streets.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the 7.0-magnitude quake had killed more than 200000 people in “a disaster on a planetary scale”. He said 300000 people had been treated for injuries, 250000 homes had been destroyed and 30000 businesses lost in the January 12 quake. The sheer scale of the disaster is reflected on the ground where a million people are homeless and struggling for aid that is slow in getting to survivors living on the streets or in camps.

With tensions running high in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince, some 300 people demonstrated outside the mayor’s office in the once upmarket suburb of Petionville, while 200 marched towards the US embassy crying out for food and aid.

Bellerive said the missionaries’ case was “a distraction” for Haitians who “are talking more now about 10 people than about one million people suffering on the streets”.

Prosecutors were to announce at a hearing yesterday how the case against the five men and five women should proceed.

The members of the Baptist group New Life Children’s Refuge were detained in Haiti last weekend after they tried to cross into the neighbouring Dominican Republic with a busload of 33 children aged from two months to 12 years.

“I’ve carried out the preliminary investigations and have sent the case to the prosecution service,” Judge Isai Pierre-Louise said.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was “unfortunate” that “this group of Americans took matters into their own hands” by trying to take the children across the border without proper documentation.

“We are engaged in discussions with the Haitian government and looking for the best way forward on this,” she added.

It has emerged that many of the children still have parents or relatives, some of whom may have personally handed them over.

The Americans’ lawyer said on Wednesday that a Haitian pastor authorised them to take the children out of the country.

“They were missionaries who came to help,” he said.

The US has taken the lead in the relief effort with some 20000 troops deployed to help out, but aid agencies say donations for Haiti relief have been desperately low compared to after the 2004 Asian tsunami, where the death toll was about 220000. The international Red Cross raised 3billion (about R22bn) in the tsunami’s aftermath but the figure for the Haiti quake – the worst natural disaster on record in the Americas – stands at just 555million.

Amid mounting frustration in Haiti’s streets, UN chief Ban Ki- moon asked former US president Bill Clinton to assume a leadership role in co-ordinating the international aid.

Meanwhile, Cephas Lumina, a UN independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, called for an immediate cancellation of Haiti’s debt with multilateral creditors such as the World Bank. He also said donors should provide unconditional aid grants. Haiti currently owes about 890m to international creditors. — Sapa-AFP