For a period of one year, after the devastating passage of Hurricane Melissathe World Food Program (WFP) will assist more than 900,000 people in 33 municipalities in the east of the country with rice, grains and oil for one year.
The aid includes the delivery of nutritional modules and essential items for the recovery of the affected communities, according to Granma.
Rolando Verdes Sánchez, member of the WFP emergency team, explained to the media that the initial aid covers six months and will be extended for 12 months in the hardest hit areas of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma and Holguín.
Nearly 3 thousand tons in the first stage
In the first month, he details, more than 2,900 tons of food will be distributed, which would deplete emergency reserves until new shipments arrive.
In Holguín, the municipality of Urbano Noris will receive universal care, while in the other 10 affected territories, children under five years of age, pregnant women and the elderly will be prioritized.
In addition to food, WFP provides mobile warehouses, lighting towers and 25 24 m² octagonal tents for distribution and storage.
According to Granmaa tower is already operating in the Urbano Noris wholesale warehouse, which allows it to operate 24 hours a day, and two mobile warehouses in Frank País and Banes for the protection of supplies.
At the end of October, when Melissa had already left the national territory, the preliminary calculations of this agency United Nations They expected that half of the 700,000 Cubans in that group needed material support for three months and that the rest would need it for half a year.
A first part of the aid, which included 617 tons of rice, grains and oil, was already on the ground thanks to the United Nations Anticipatory Action for emergencies in Cubawhich anticipated, among its assumptions, the passage of a hurricane, and prepared for the arrival of Melissa.
According to EFEin order to meet its projections for the next six months, the agency indicated that it needed up to 30 million dollars, of which 25 million dollars will be allocated for basic foods.
Last week, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) indicated that the international support received by donors was still not sufficient to meet all the humanitarian needs of the 2.2 million people affected by the cyclone.
On October 31, the organization asked the international community for 15 million Swiss francs ($18 million) to assist those affected for two years, but so far it has received only 16.3% of this required amount, while the needs grow, a statement from the organization highlighted.
“Our efforts fall short of the magnitude of the needs we find, especially in rural areas and on the coastal strip where Melissa made landfall,” warned the executive president of the Cuban Red Cross, Carlos Pérez Díaz.
The Red Cross also warned that the loss of more than 150 thousand hectares of crops threatens food security, and the damage to more than 155 thousand homes exposes the population to epidemics of dengue, oropouche and chikungunya declared in the country.
