Haitian President increases death toll by 40,000
February 11th, 2010 - 4:17 am ICT by BNO NewsPORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (BNO NEWS) – Haiti President Rene Preval on Wednesday said that the Government has buried 270,000 bodies in mass graves as a result of the devastating earthquake that hit a month ago.
The number is 40,000 bodies higher than the death toll released by Preval’s communications minister the previous day, even though a worker at the mass graves said that only two bodies were buried there this week. There was no explanation provided for why the number changed so drastically.
The president gave the new figure during a meeting with South American presidents in Ecuador.
The President’s toll conflicts with numbers given by Haiti Minister of Interior Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, saying that the death toll had risen to 217,000. Minister Bien-Aime discounted the reports of the death toll being even as high as 230,000 earlier that day.
“There are people who put forth the figure of 230,000 but we have counted a bit more than 217,000. These are verified figures.”
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Tags: american presidents, bno, conflicts, death toll, devastating earthquake, ecuador, haitian president, mass graves, port au prince, port au prince haiti, president increases, president rene preval, s communications