Miami/The aid that the United States had promised to send to Cuba for the victims of Hurricane Melissa It is finally beginning to take shape, two and a half months after the passage of the cyclone, which affected the east of the Island. This same Wednesday, the first flight left Miami for Holguín, loaded with various essential items.
To give details, in the same hangar, Mike Hammer, head of mission of the US Embassy in Havana, offered a press conference, at the same time as the State Department issued a statement. In it, two charter flights are reported, this Wednesday and another additional one on Friday, bound for Santiago de Cuba, “each with 525 food packages and 650 hygiene packages, and water for 1,000 families.”
In addition, they say, a commercial ship will arrive in Santiago de Cuba “within the next few weeks with the rest of Washington’s assistance.” The total value of the aid is three million dollars, in support for 6,000 families, or 24,000 people, in the provinces most affected by the cyclone: Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Granma and Guantánamo.
The US Government assures that the shipments are designed to “reach those most in need, evading interference from the regime, and guaranteeing transparency and accountability.”
The US Government assures that the shipments are designed to “reach those most in need, evading interference from the regime, and guaranteeing transparency and accountability.” To do this, they work in coordination with the Catholic Church organization Caritas. “We work with the Catholic Church and our partners to ensure that aid reaches the Cuban people directly, not the illegitimate regime. The Trump Administration stands with the Cuban people,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote. in a tweet this Wednesday.
The State Department’s statement lists the shipments as including rice, beans, oil, sugar, water purification tablets and water storage containers, pots, kitchen utensils, sheets, blankets, flashlights and other essential items.
Since Melissa passed through, organizations such as the Red Cross or countries such as China, Venezuela, Spain, Colombia, South Korea and Mexico have sent food and humanitarian aid to Cuba.
The hurricane left considerable material damage – but no fatalities, according to the Cuban Government – with winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour and rainfall that left up to 400 millimeters (or liters per square meter) in some parts of the country. According to official data, more than 90,000 homes were damaged, in addition to 600 state medical infrastructures, more than 2,000 educational centers, some 100,000 hectares of crops and transportation, telecommunications, electricity and water supply infrastructure.
The United Nations presented an action plan of 74.2 million dollars (64 million euros) to serve a population of around one million people, just over 10% of the country’s population. The United States, for its part, promised 37 million dollars to the affected countries, but only three, and supervised by the Church, will be for the Island.
