The aid for Cuba announced a month ago by the United States Government after the devastating Hurricane Melissa It has not yet arrived on the island.
Valued at 3 million dollarsthis aid would be delivered through the organization of the Catholic Church Cáritas and would be allocated to the victims of the hurricane. However, as he explained to the agency EFE the director of Cáritas Cuba, Carmen María Nodal, the same “is still in process.”
“The (American) aid has not yet been received, it is still in process. It will be received in material goods, for the affected dioceses, and will be delivered by the Cáritas Diocesanas,” he told the Spanish media.
In a report on the subject, EFE He claims to have contacted the US Embassy in Havana, but so far he has not received a response.
The agency recalls that a month ago the State Department notified on its networks that it was “coordinating with the Catholic Church the distribution of 3 million dollars in humanitarian assistance directly to those most affected in eastern Cuba by the devastation of Hurricane Melissa.”
Then, the Cuban Government thanked Washington for this “humanitarian gesture,” but stated that, as on previous occasions, the aid would be “channeled” through institutional channels in cooperation with the Catholic Church.
“It takes everything”
In statements to EFE The director of Cáritas Cuba considered that currently “everything is needed” in the regions affected by Melissa: from drinking water to non-perishable food, including hygiene and cleaning products.
Medications are also very necessary, especially “due to the arbovirus epidemic,” chikungunya and dengue, he noted.
Nodal also highlighted the need for “roofs” for the homes affected by the hurricane and for “resources that allow the use of the land for the cultivation of short-cycle foods that help guarantee the food of the people in these circumstances.”
According to him, Cáritas has been very active in eastern Cuba since Melissa passed through. Their work has focused on helping the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the hurricane, thanks to donations received from other countries, including the United States.
The Catholic organization has collaborated, for example, in the delivery of food collected by the archdiocese of Miami, which has chartered four planes with donations to date that have already arrived on the island.
He has also worked on the distribution of food and other donations with World Central Kitchen (WCK), the NGO of Spanish chef José Andrés; Catholic Relief Services (CRS); and the Polish embassy in Cuba.
WCK has distributed 7,000 food kits to families and kitchen supplies—such as a thousand multipurpose or queen pots—and the CRS delivered 1,625 tents to families with damage in eastern Cuba, the report listed. EFE.
One month from Melissa
Hurricane Melissa entered Cuba in the early hours of Wednesday, October 29, with category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It crossed the east of the country for about seven hours, with gusts of up to 200 km/h, torrential rains and storm surges that generated extensive flooding.
As a result, the eastern area suffered considerable material damage, although no fatalities, according to the Cuban Government.
According to recent figures, some 149 thousand homes were affected, as well as 600 medical centers and 2 thousand schools, among other buildings. Electrical, hydraulic and telecommunications infrastructure, transportation routes and some 158 thousand hectares of crops also suffered severe damage.
To address this situation, the United Nations presented an action plan of 74.2 million dollars to serve an affected population of around one million people, just over 10% of the country’s population, although other calculations raise the figure above 2 million.
Furthermore, since the hurricane, multilateral agencies, NGOs such as the Red Cross and governments of countries such as China, Venezuela, Spain, Colombia, South Korea and Mexico have sent food and humanitarian aid to Cuba.
