International relief efforts are gaining momentum in Haiti, a week after an earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and left three million in need of help, but relief workers are facing fresh problems from severe shortages of fuel. After criticism that military and rescue flights had been given priority over humanitarian aid at the tiny Port-au-Prince airport, the US and UN have now agreed to prioritise aid, paving the way for critical supplies to get out to survivors. But fuel shortages, as well as security concerns, bureaucratic confusion and the sheer scale of the need, continue to pose severe challenges to the distribution of aid. "Fuel has become a critical issue," said Emilia Casella, a spokesperson for the UN's World Food Programme. The UN food agency said it was planning to move close to 38,000 litres of diesel fuel a day from the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Port-au-Prince, said the diminishing fuel supplies threatened to stall relief efforts. "The danger here is that those fuel supplies that the UN says it is simply running out of are also fuel supplies for all of the UN agencies who are meant to be spearheading this relief effort," he said. "The problem is distribution - it's getting the aid that is already at the airport out to the places that need it most, and if the fuel is running dry that means that won't be able to happen." The UN said more than 73,000 people had received a week's rations, but relief groups estimate that as many as one third of the nine million population is in need of assistance, and some 300,000 survivors in the capital alone are still living in sprawling tent cities.
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