Havana/While the United States and Cuba remain on guard regarding the possible sending of humanitarian aid due to the passage of Melissathe Red Cross has launched an alert to raise 18 million dollars that should be used to assist some 100,000 people, estimates the organization’s delegation on the Island. The amount would not only serve to alleviate the effects of the hurricane, but to act against the “current outbreak” of dengue, oropouche and chikungunya.
“This emergency appeal is essential to raise the funds needed to help the Cuban people,” said Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The manager warned of the “immense devastation” left by the hurricane and considered that recovery “will take months, perhaps years.”
The action plan has a planned duration of two years and will be developed in three phases: immediate humanitarian response, early recovery and long-term resilience.
It involves adding tool kits, mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils and solar lamps
The Red Cross had already sent help before Melissa arrived on the Island this Wednesday, specifically 1,000 family emergency kits with hygiene and kitchen items. Now, he points out, it is about adding tool kits, mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils and solar lamps, in addition to domestic and community treatments to make water drinkable, something basic to “prevent and reduce the transmission of diseases associated with the impact of the hurricane and the arbovirus outbreak that the country is simultaneously facing.”
Once this problem has been addressed, a reconstruction phase would follow, in which the organization aims to provide roofing kits, tools and courses so that citizens can repair their homes as much as possible.
The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba (COCC) had requested in the previous hours “urgent” help from international solidarity for the “catastrophe of enormous proportions” left by the meteor, and which in fact affected not only the emblematic Basilica of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, but also numerous local churches and religious houses, they indicated in their note this Thursday.
The prelates have offered to channel aid through the Catholic Church and Caritas. “Food, clothing, mattresses, household supplies and roofing materials are needed, especially for the elderly and the most vulnerable,” point out the bishops, who speak of “a national tragedy that adds to the already difficult daily reality, with shortages of primary goods, prolonged and frequent power outages, viruses and diseases increasingly spreading.”
The COCC thanked “God that, so far, no loss of human life has been reported,” as well as those who “welcomed in different institutions, family homes and temples, those who were most at risk of being affected,” in total at least 750,000 people throughout the eastern part of the Island.
The bishops’ offer could open a way for donations from the United States
“We appeal to the solidarity of sister Churches and Caritas. To Cubans from other parts of the world and throughout the country. To all those who, with good will, want and can help us,” the statement added.
The bishops’ offer could open a way to donations from the USAwhich insists that the sending of any humanitarian aid should not go through the hands of the Government, although at the moment its offer remains unresolved. The note that the State Department made public this Thursday affects the use of common ways to avoid the embargosuch as the granting of licenses to export medical supplies or food, but it does not represent an emergency line, as is expected at this time.
Nor would lifting the embargo, as several countries have requested in recent hours, led by China and Venezuela. The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Guo Jiakun said this Friday in a press conference that Washington must “heed the request of the international community”, expressed mostly in the United Nations General Assembly that requested, by 165 votes in favor, the end of the sanctions.
Although it was a diminishing vote, if compared to other occasions, the Island has once again received this support which, in the words of the spokesperson, “reflects once again the broad support of the international community for the just struggle of the Cuban people to defend their national sovereignty and oppose foreign interference and the blockade.” Guo asked Washington to act “immediately” and vindicated China’s position, which “in its defense of international justice, will continue to firmly support the Cuban people in their opposition to foreign interference and in their search for development in line with their national conditions.”
Maduro also spoke from Venezuela, whose chancellor, Yván Gil, announced yesterday the sending of 26 tons of humanitarian aid to the Island and added that “in the next few days” a ship with 3,000 more tons will set sail. “The United States Government has offered help to Cuba for the first time. Well, the best help is for them to lift the entire economic blockade of Cuba, to lift all measures of economic persecution against Cuba,” he said in an event broadcast on the state channel.
“All humanity voted to stop torture against the economic and social body of Cuba, so if the United States Government wants to help Cuba, as (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio said today, lift all measures today, and you will see that it is the best historical help for a heroic and patriotic people,” he said.
In reality, it is not the first time that Washington offers help to the Island after the passage of a hurricane. Already in 2012, when Sandy also devastated Santiago de Cuba, a dispute very similar to this one occurred, when the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance made the same offer to send humanitarian assistance outside the Government, an unusual practice that the regime does not even consider accepting.
