Yele Haiti Lends a Hand in Port au Prince while civil rule is gone

By Wyclef Jean

The hip-hop singer spent Friday rounding up the dead from the rubble of Port-au-Prince, and said the violence – including the killing of a local boy working for his charity – and desperation is too much to bear.

“We need a state of emergency,” said Jean, whose Yele Haiti foundation has been raising relief funds and collecting supplies.

“I am just frustrated,” he said. “Right now the country is in dire need of fuel, water, medicine.”

Jean, who was born in Haiti, said he arrived in the devastated capital on Thursday and went directly to where the people needed him most.

“My first mission was, how can we start removing the dead bodies from the street,” he said.

During their efforts, Fan Fan, a local boy who works with Jean’s foundation, was using a truck as a make-shift hearse and was shot to death as he drove away from a cemetery.

“Somebody wanted to carjack the car,” he said. “Two shots.”

The violence is coupled with the ever-present feeling that more buildings could fall in the aftershocks, Jean said.

“They are hitting like earthquakes,” he said. “In any minute we can be under the debris. I slept outside.”

Jean said he thinks he’d have more impact heading back to the United States and using his celebrity to speak out about what’s happening in Haiti.

On Jan. 22, Jean will co-host with George Clooney a “Hope for Haiti” all-star telethon that will air on nearly every network.

“The least I could do is just help my country,” he said.