US Pledges $60 Million to Bolster Recovery Efforts in Haiti
(Bloomberg) -- The US will provide $60 million in humanitarian assistance to Haiti as the Caribbean island nation struggles to recover from a series of calamities, most recently an onslaught of mayhem by criminal gangs.
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United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on her first visit to Haiti in three years, also announced that the US Defense Department would provide nine military vehicles to a new multinational security mission.
She met with interim Prime Minister Garry Conille and the country’s Transitional Presidential Council as part of US efforts to encourage new elections, three years after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise plunged the country deeper into chaos.
“I leave here today very hopeful, having heard what I heard on the ground,” she said in Port-au-Prince on Monday.
Conille met with Thomas-Greenfield and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month during a visit to the US.
The ambassador added that she didn’t hear specific concerns from Haitian officials about recent political developments in the US, but said they “want assurances that our support for Haiti will continue. And again, we have a large number of people in Congress who are supportive of Haiti, and they will continue to support these efforts moving forward.”
Earlier: Kenya’s Mission to Haiti Faces Scrutiny After Deadly Protests
Thomas-Greenfield’s trip occurred less than a month after the multinational security force led by Kenya arrived in a fresh effort to bring calm to the country, which has been largely taken over by gangs since Moise was killed in July 20121.
The US and neighbors have struggled to support Haiti, which has long grappled with poverty and political instability and has been buffeted by repeated disasters both natural and man-made. A 2010 earthquake killed some 220,000 people, and thousands more died after UN peacekeepers deployed to the country after the quake inadvertently touched off a cholera epidemic.
Members of the Kenya-led force have begun patrols, the US officials said. Joint operations have not yet begun.
Thomas-Greenfield departed for Haiti from Joint Base Andrews on a C-17 cargo aircraft in the wee hours of Monday morning, the trip unannounced until the aircraft had left Washington airspace. Once in Haiti, her small motorcade of armored vehicles struggled at times to navigate traffic on the uneven, winding roads in the hills of Port-au-Prince.
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