France assisting Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba in hurricane recovery

The Government of France will be sending emergency aid totalling €220,000 to assist Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba following the passage of Hurricane Sandy two weeks ago.

On Thursday, the French Embassy in Kingston announced that just over €50,000 will be handed over to the Office of Disaster Preparedness in the eastern parish of Portland on Friday.

“These funds will preferably be allocated to the drying up of a number of hospitals and school buildings which were damaged by floods or rains and to measures aimed at controlling the extension of the dengue disease,” the embassy said in a release.

According to first counsellor Jean-Luc Wertheimer, the embassy was moved to respond given the extent of the damage suffered in the east and the north-east end of Jamaica as well as sections of Cuba and Haiti.

Of that total amount, €60,000 to Cuba will go directly to non-governmental organizations in the city of Santiago de Cuba, the area that suffered most from the disaster, said Vincent Floreani, deputy spokesman of the French Foreign Ministry.

The late season storm that roared across the Caribbean and then into sections of the United States left behind millions of dollars in damage and claimed more than 100 lives.

CMC