Matt Damon, Wyclef Jean help Haiti

Arts and Culture

Matt Damon, Wyclef Jean visit Haiti city in ruins after four storms hit Haiti.

Actor Matt Damon, second left, Musician Wyclef Jean, and New Brunswick, Canada Premier Frank McKenna are escorted by U.N. peacekeepers and police officers in Gonaives, Haiti. Damon and Jean arrived Saturday in Gonaives as part of Yele Haiti, Jean's aid foundation activities, after four tropical storms hit the country within one month.

A boy stands on the roof of a shelter for flood victims in Gonaives, Haiti, "I'm speechless, I can't believe it," said Damon, looking down from a U.N. helicopter at people living on the rooftops of flooded homes. Four tropical storms and hurricanes have hit Haiti within one month, killing at least 300 people and leaving thousands homeless without food or water.

Actor Matt Damon, second left, wades through a flooded street along with Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean, unseen, as both are escorted by U.N. peacekeepers and police officers in Gonaives, Haiti. Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike submerged the Haitian city and cut off roadways. Where waters have receded, streets remain a stinking mud bath and homes are carpeted with muck and encrusted pots, pans and laundry.

Matt Damon, left, wades through a flooded street along with Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean, second left. Damon and Jean arrived Saturday in Gonaives as part of Jean's foundation's Yele Haiti aid activities. Gonaives is where Haiti declared independence from France in 1804 as the world's first black republic.

U.S. actor Matt Damon, center, arrives to a food distribution point in Gonaives, Haiti. Damon and Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean arrived Saturday in Haiti as part of Jean's foundation's Yele Haiti aid activities, after four tropical storms hit the country within one month, leaving 800,000 Haitians in need of aid.

US actor Matt Damon, center, stands by Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean who speaks into a microphone as they visit flood victims in Gonaives, Haiti. Damon arrived with Jean to help Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation distribute aid after four tropical storms hit the country within one month.

Jean's Yele Haiti charity is helping the World Food Program and the Organization of American States-affiliated Pan American Development Foundation distribute food to 3,000 families.

Actor Matt Damon, second right and Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean, center, distribute food to flood victims. Their convoy visited a school shelter Sunday to hand out cooking oil and bags of beans.

Matt Damon gives a sack of rice to a Wyclef Jean during a food distribution operation for flood victims by Wyclef Jean's foundation, Yele Haiti, in Cabaret, Haiti. Residents of a town that saw 60 people die in flash floods when Hurricane Ike grazed Haiti last week.

Damon pours traditional Haitian sauce on a plate of rice and beans held by singer Wyclef Jean in a church being used as a shelter after four tropical storms hit Haiti.

"It's inhumane. I wish there was a word in the dictionary. No human should be living like this," said Jean, who became famous through his Grammy-winning band, The Fugees, and later emerged as a solo artist.

Matt Damon and Wyclef Jean encouraged help for the United Nations to raise more than $100 million for 800,000 Haitians in need after four tropical storms and hurricanes have struck the country since mid-August.

Matt Damon, second left, walks with Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean as they are escorted by security in Cabaret, Haiti. Once emergency aid started arriving four days after the storm, the U.N. agencies began ratcheting up food distributions to reach as many as 12,000 people a day. More than 120,000 people are in shelters in the Artibonite region, which includes Gonaives, desperate for water and food, the Haitian government reported.

Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean sang for a few minutes to a crowd in Gonaives. When he later tried to leave, people swept him into the streets. Admirers, some asking for money, clung to U.N. trucks as they drove away. A man on a bicycle tried to keep up with Damon and Jean's truck, shouting, "I love you, Wyclef." Jean raised his hand, but couldn't smile back.

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Actor Matt Damon, second left, Musician Wyclef Jean, and New Brunswick, Canada Premier Frank McKenna are escorted by U.N. peacekeepers and police officers in Gonaives, Haiti. Damon and Jean arrived Saturday in Gonaives as part of Yele Haiti, Jean's aid foundation activities, after four tropical storms hit the country within one month.

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