Two teams of United Nations disaster experts will leave for Haiti and the Dominican Republic by Friday to assess and coordinate emergency relief efforts following flash floods that have killed hundreds of people.
“They will leave, one for Haiti and the other for the Dominican Republic … between this evening and tomorrow morning,” Elisabeth Byrs, a spokesperson for the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, said on Thursday.
The Disaster and Assessment Coordination members, who are specially trained to cope with major catastrophes, will help UN and other aid agency officials who are based in the two Caribbean countries respond to the floods that have killed nearly 900 people.
“These people are used to this kind of disaster, they know what to do and how to act,” Byrs said. “They will go with a bag and a satellite phone and tell us what they see and what are the urgent needs. We have NGO and UN people on the ground but these experts are trained for this kind of disaster.”
Asked why the UN teams, who will travel from Geneva and Panama, were called in to lend a hand, Byrs said: “The situation is quite serious and there are not enough people there right now.”
The governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic have given their approval for the mission, but have yet to make an official appeal for international aid, the OCHA spokesperson added.
“If we have decided to send the teams then that means we have had the okay from both governments,” she said.
The UN disaster experts will coordinate relief efforts already under way to help those affected by the severe flooding that has hit the Caribbean in recent days, until the sitution calms down, Byrs explained.
A local mission by the UN and other aid agencies in Haiti such as the Red Cross and Oxfam has flown to the southeastern town of Mapou Belle-Anse, taking water and water purification tablets, she said earlier.
Also on Thursday, an 11-person team of the World Food Programme and Haitian Health Ministry officials is due to fly by helicopter to Fonds Verette, an agricultural town on a dried riverbed northeast of Port-au-Prince to help.
Three helicopters will ferry food such as oil, rice and biscuits to the flooded town of 45 000 people, which has reported 165 dead, along with more than 500 houses destroyed and more than 3 000 heavily damaged.
The island of Hispaniola shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic is in the eye of a fierce tropical storm that lashed the Caribbean for the past 10 days.
The death toll in Haiti on Thursday rose to 571, while in the Dominican Republic it stood at 300 with 375 missing. But a local health official said up to 1 000 people may have died in one town alone. — AFP