GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders Tuesday agreed to approach the international community for financial relief following the destruction caused to two regional countries when Hurricane Beryl plowed through the Windward Islands on Monday, leaving a trail of death and destruction.
“The extent of destruction here will require international support; not only immediate financial support in the form of grants and long-term low-interest concessional loans but also help in terms of restructuring existing loans,” the outgoing CARICOM chairman and Guyana’sGuyana’s President Irfaan Ali said following the virtual meeting of the regional leaders.
He told the Guyana-based Demerara Waves Online News that even Barbados, which was spared the brunt of the hurricane,ne, was among the islands facing a “devastating” period.
Ali said that the regional leaders agreed definitively to “reach out to all stakeholders to commence discussions on international support.”
He said that regionally, CARICOM countries were responding in various forms and that Trinidad, Tobago, and Guyana were providing shiploads of supplies.
Ali, who had been due to hand over the chairmanship of the 15-member regional integration grouping to Grenada on Wednesday this week, said the twin-island nation has offered “tremendous support.”
“There are two vessels that they are coordinating with to load food and other supplies to go to Grenada, and they are in discussions about all other needed help,” he said.
Writing on his Facebook page, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Dr.Keith Rowley said that the meeting had received updated reports of the devastation of Grenadine territories of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Before the meeting, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said that the meeting would receive reports from the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the governments impacted “so we can assess our collective response and assistance to those countries affected”.
Rowley said that Grenada’sGrenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, who had earlier told a news conference that at least three people had died as a result of the storm, told his regional colleagues that “Hurricane Beryl has wrecked Carriacou.
“Similarly, Prime Minister Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines reported on the .”vastation of Canouan, Union Island, and Mayreau”.
Rowley said that the Trinidad and Tobago government is mobilizing relief supplies to be urgently dispatched by marine crafts on Tuesday night.
“Given the level of total devastation experienced on these islands, the government of Trinidad and Tobago, acknowledging the deep familial ties between these islands and Trinidad and Tobago, has offered to allow school-age children from the devastated zones to be allowed into Trinidad and Tobago if they have family here, who may wish to house them during the school holiday period which is upon us at this time,” Rowley said.
President Ali said Guyana, which had already dispatched a plane load of supplies to Grenada, would be dispatching two cargo vessels to that country and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
“We have secured the rental of two vessels, 1,200 tonnes and, I think, 900 tonnes. He said that one would be going to St Vincent and one would be going to Grenada with critical supplies and – equipment and hardware to help in this process,” he said.
Hundreds of houses and other buildings have been severely damaged or destroyed in Carriacou, a sister island of Grenada, and Bequia, Union Island, and other Vincentian sister islands.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne reminded the meeting about his country’s experience in 2017 when Hurricane Irma hit it. He recalls that the United Nations had convened a pledging conference that was extremely helpful in mobilizing donor assistance.
Browne, who pledged his country’s support to the affected countries, recommends conducting a similar exercise to address the situation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.
He said the air wing of the Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force would also assist the Regional Security System (RSS) in providing airlift for military personnel and transporting goods and supplies.
Prime Minister Mitchell said that his cabinet would be meeting in an emergency session on Tuesday, and he is expected to brief the nation afterward on the CARICOM meeting and the ongoing efforts to bring relief to the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
and then  leaders Tuesday agreed to approach the international community for financial relief){kind=link}