Children wait outside a church where aid workers were giving out bags of food donated by the Venezuelan government, in Port-au-Prince, on Friday. - AP

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AP):

Hundreds of Haitians stood in long lines Saturday, just as others had walked for hours throughout the week to receive the United Nations and regional food aid pouring into the country after a spate of deadly riots.

But amid the tenuous calm, aid groups say they are just buying time - and long-term solutions seem remote in the desperately poor nation.

"The beans might last four days,'' said Jervais Rodman, an unemployed carpenter with three children who emerged from a churchyard Friday with small bags of food. "The rice will be gone as soon as I get home.''

Rodman was one of the lucky ones. Many others arrived after the distribution centres had run out.

Haitian officials handed out 1,000 bags of UN-bought food Saturday in Cite Soleil, a huge seaside slum on the eastern edge of the capital. Though aid was limited to women over age 57 and the handicapped, at least 50 people who waited in line were turned away.

Empty-handed

Claudete Depalis, 60, left empty-handed after hoping to get food for the 12 children of extended family who live in her home.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with these kids today,'' she said.

More than half of Haiti's nearly nine million people live on less than US$2 a day, and the rise in food prices has deepened the country's misery.