US Navy ship brings aid for Haitian orphanages

A U.S. Navy cargo ship docked in Haiti on Wednesday carrying nearly $1 million worth of relief supplies for orphanages.

The load of 177 pallets of canned food and bottled water was brought by the Navy's high-speed transport vessel HSV 2 Swift as part of a humanitarian mission.

The donated goods were collected in the aftermath of Haiti's devastating January 2010 earthquake.

But the Navy's aid program Project Handclasp said the supplies got held up at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because of various transport difficulties and the bulk of the food passed its expiration date and had to be tossed.

A spokesman for the program, Cmdr. Lewis Preddy, said sending the food on a ship earlier would have meant drawing down resources from humanitarian missions elsewhere.

Catholic Relief Services is distributing the supplies to Haitian to orphanages.

In November, the same Navy ship delivered a mobile medical clinic and 39 pallets of water filters to Haiti.