The parents of 17 B.C. Interior high school students stranded in quake-ravaged Haiti got an email from the group Thursday, but that didn't end their anxiety.
They learned that one of the adult chaperones is hurt, and that the group is worried about running out of food.
"There are reports of looting and we are concerned for our safety outside," wrote Jim Reimer, pastor of Kootenay Christian Fellowship and one of the chaperones accompanying the students from Mount Sentinel Secondary in South Slocan, B.C.
"We all want to go home."
During a conference call with reporters late Thursday, Kootenay Lake School District Superintendent Patricia Dooley said school officials have been appealing to the federal government for help in evacuating the group.
She said the group should be given priority status because they're mostly children.
"The situation is getting more tenuous each day," she said. "We absolutely view this as a crisis situation."
Contacted late Thursday, a spokesman for the federal Department of Foreign Affairs told ctvbc.ca that he was unable to comment directly about the school group. He also couldn't say how Canadians were being evacuated from Haiti or if children were being given priority status.
"We hope to evacuate as many Canadians as possible," he said.
Joyce Ouellet, whose son Blake is part of the group, told ctvbc.ca that it was a relief to hear directly from the group for the first time. But she's concerned about how they're holding up.
"I don't know how traumatized they are," she said. "It's probably scaring them."
Urgency grows
The 16- to 18-year-old students travelled to Haiti to do humanitarian work, including helping on a goat farm.
The email sent at 2:17 p.m. (PST) Thursday was the group's first direct communication since the quake struck on Tuesday.
Reimer, the pastor, said each member of the group wanted to send individual emails but "the circumstances here do now allow us that."
Reimer said one of the adult chaperones on the trip may have suffered a broken rib and is in a "lot of pain."
He said the group arrived just 45 minutes before the earth started to rumble. Some were taking a shower.
"Miraculously the house did not collapse," Reimer wrote.
He said the group was visited by United Nations staff, who advised them it was best to stay put because the roads to the capital were inaccessible.
Reimer said more and more people are seeking refuge at their mission, Haiti Arise. The walls of the compound are down, he said.
"The longer we are here, the more tenuous our situation becomes," he wrote. "There is no food or fuel distribution taking place at this time and we could soon run out of food."
