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News > World

WFP to Provide $5.7M Food Aid to Over 650,000 Cubans

  • People line up to buy bread after Hurricane Irma caused flooding and a blackout in Havana, Cuba, September 11, 2017.

    People line up to buy bread after Hurricane Irma caused flooding and a blackout in Havana, Cuba, September 11, 2017. | Photo: Reuters FILE

Published 17 September 2017
Opinion

Beasley added that the WFP already dispatched 1,600 tons of food to Cuba as well as 1.5 million dollars in emergency funds.

World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley, on Saturday, said the organization will soon provide food aid – through a $5.7 million fund – to more than 650,000 Cubans following wide-scale devastation from Hurricane Irma.

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Beasley added that the WFP already dispatched 1,600 tons of food to Cuba as well as 1.5 million dollars in emergency funds to purchase additional goods.

"The World Food Programme is committed (to) the people affected by Hurricane Irma along more than 800 kilometers of coastline in Cuba and we are ready to support the Cuban government in its recovery efforts," said Beasley.

“This hurricane just went down the entire coastline, the volume of impact is just unprecedented,” Beasley said after meeting with Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The operation is scheduled to begin immediately with need-based distribution, focusing on boarding schools students, adults over 65, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

"The magnitude of the devastation caused by Irma requires that we work together to ensure an immediate recovery and that people have water, food, housing and the economy can re-establish itself," he said.

“It's really impressive what the Cuban people have done, thousands of houses, hospitals, schools and electrical infrastructure have been destroyed and people are focused on the recovery," Beasley added.

Second chief of Cuba's Civil Defense bureau, Luis Macareno, expressed gratitude for the WFP donation.

"The United Nations system in Cuba has always been closely linked to what the Cuban state is doing and this is a demonstration of this. In difficult times, they have been supporting the Cuban people in need," he said.

While, Beasley said the program's purpose is to complement the Cuban government's effort to supply food to hurricane-affected individuals.

“We are talking about 60,000 hectares of agricultural land that have been dramatically impacted, banana trees, citrus, rice maize, everything,” Beasley explained.

“It’s times like this when we all lay aside our political differences and come together for the common good,” the former South Carolina governor said.

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