The Honourable Premier, Alden McLaughlin, is headed to Anguilla today for a humanitarian missionary trip to deliver some non-perishable supplies. We understand that there is a contingency of persons including the Premier's political assistant, Roy Tatum and medical personnel. They will be taking medical supplies and other non-perishable items.
CMR understands that the Premier left this morning at 9:00 a.m. on Cayman Airways and will be returning this evening at 6:00 p.m. This will also be a fact finding mission to ascertain what the precise situation is. Our sources stated “private sector wants to send donations but we need to know precisely what items are most needed and how they can be best delivered to the people on those islands.”
People are encouraged to continue collecting goods but to await further instructions on delivery.
The visit was also mention in the United Kingdom's House of Commons by an MP this morning. Ironically, the UK has been highly criticized for a lack of appropriate response to it's overseas territories impacted by Hurricane Irma. The UK response, given the scale of the devastation, looks flat-footed compared with that mounted by the French and Dutch governments.
The chairs of the UK’s foreign affairs and development select committees have asked the government to explain its response to Hurricane Irma, which has been widely deemed as inadequate.
“Experts and many in the area have been critical of the overall level of relief currently on offer as well as the apparent lack of forward-thinking once the storm’s route to Florida became more than just a possibility,” Tom Tugendhat and Stephen Twigg wrote.
“We are concerned that many in the UK’s overseas territories in the Caribbean are still in grave need,” they continued. “In Anguilla, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Turks and Caicos, our response still requires improvement and the arrival of HMS Ocean in two weeks’ time will be later than any of us would wish.”
Theresa May took personal charge of the government’s much-criticised response to the devastation wrought by Irma in the British Caribbean earlier on Friday when she chaired an emergency meeting of Cobra and declared British troops were working round the clock to help victims and restore basic services.
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