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75 percent of Haiti capital needs rebuilding: UN envoy

29 January 2010 02:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. More than 75 percent of Haiti’s capital will have to be rebuilt, after the devastating earthquake that leveled swathes of the city, the UN deputy special envoy for the stricken Caribbean nation said Thursday, APA reports citing AFP.

Haiti’s President Rene Preval said Wednesday that the quake had killed 170,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

Meanwhile, former US President Bill Clinton, attending a gathering of world economic and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland made an emotional appeal that they do all they can to help Haiti "rise from the ashes."

"They need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster," said Clinton, a UN special envoy on Haiti, a country he said had been "punished by either being ignored or abused.

"They’ve got the best chance they’ve ever had in my lifetime .. to escape that past and we have the best chance we’ve ever had to be a part of that," he said as he launched an initiative at the World Economic Forum to get private sector help for the stricken nation.

Clinton told the business leaders they should help "empower people who are as gifted and hard working and creative, under unbelievably adverse circumstances, as any I’ve ever seen."