Aid will be three million dollars (R$16 million); Cuban government, which has preventively evacuated more than 700,000 people, has so far reported no casualties
This Sunday (2), they announced humanitarian aid worth three million dollars (R$16 million) for Cubans affected by Hurricane Melissa, which devastated several provinces in the east of the island. “The United States is coordinating with the Catholic Church to distribute three million dollars in humanitarian aid directly to the people of eastern most affected by the devastation of Hurricane Melissa”, the US government’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs announced in the X. On Friday, the government of the United States, which has maintained an economic embargo against Cuba for more than six decades, declared that it “supports the courageous Cuban people”.
Melissa, which earlier this week devastated entire regions of Jamaica, impacted eastern Cuba and caused flooding in Haiti, left around 60 people dead in the Caribbean. The Cuban government, which has preventively evacuated more than 700,000 people, has so far reported no casualties. However, several eastern provinces suffered considerable damage, including house collapses, power outages and crop devastation.
At the end of 2021, Washington once again included Cuba on its list of “sponsors of terrorism”, which led to a tightening of the embargo. Former US President Joe Biden removed the island from the list a week before leaving the White House, but his successor, Donald Trump, quickly restored the measure. In the past, the Catholic Church often acted as a mediator between the two ideological adversaries.
In the rest of the Caribbean, the United States mobilized humanitarian aid teams in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Bahamas and Haiti. American Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared on Friday that Cuba was included in the American initiative. Venezuela and Mexico have already sent aid to Cuba, in addition to UN agencies.
*With information from AFP
