Tears streamed down Wyclef Jean’s face as the singer promised his fellow Haitians that he would not desert them in their hour of need.
Clutching a handkerchief, he pleaded for continued international help for the quake-hit island at a press conference broadcast live on his Yéle Haiti foundation website.
The 37-year-old former Fugees star said the devastated capital Port-au-Prince urgently needed to be evacuated so that relief agencies could go in.
However, his impassioned speech was tinged with anger as he was forced to deny that money raised by his charity – up to $2m – had been diverted for his personal gain.
‘If you don’t mind I would want to speak to my people in Haiti,’ he said, taking the platform in New York. ‘So I will speak to them in their own language.’
He later translated, saying: ‘I told them that I don’t cry for myself, that I cry for them.
‘I tell them just…give us…a little more time. We’re going to be back on the ground on Saturday and we are going to be back on the ground every week to help the situation.’
Jean, who has just returned from a three-day fact-finding mission to Haiti, said the most important job was to organise a mass exodus of the Port-au-Prince so that emergency workers could go in and clear the rubble.
He insisted that residents should be evacuated to tent cities outside the capital so that aid could reach them and the clean-up could begin in earnest.
Hang in there Wyclef haters gone hate just keep your head up and focus on your country. We know you been very proud of your background since moving to the states and it must be hard seeing where you once lived destroyed.
