Top U.N. officials confirmed dead in quake

NEW YORK, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The bodies of United Nations Haiti Mission Chief Hedi Annabi and his top deputy have been found in the collapsed ruins of the mission, the U.N. said Saturday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed the deaths of Annabi and deputy envoy Luiz Carlos da Costa along with acting mission police Commissioner Doug Coates of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"In every sense of the word, they gave their lives for peace," Ban said.

Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat, joined the United Nations in 1981 and had long been involved in peacekeeping operations. He was appointed head of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti in 2007.

"He gave of himself -- with energy, discipline and great bravery," Ban said, calling the envoy the "gold standard of service against which all who had the privilege to work with him were measured."

The Christopher Hotel, which housed the United Nations' Haiti headquarters in Port-au-Prince, collapsed in the 7-magnitude quake Tuesday.

Ban credited da Costa, a Brazilian, with recruiting talented staff members to the international organization and "mentoring generations of U.N. staff."

"His legacy lives in the thousands that serve under the blue flag in every corner of the globe," Ban said.

Ban called Coates "a great police officer who believed to his core in the importance of rule of law and justice."

The United Nations estimated the quake left 300,000 people homeless and destroyed 10 percent of the buildings in Port-au-Prince. The Red Cross has put the death toll at 50,000 or more, and top Haitian officials had said they thought it would go much higher.