Prime Minister the Hon. Gaston Browne has expressed empathy to the governments of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines over the widespread destruction that both countries suffered from the passage of the
powerful hurricane, Beryl on Monday.
Speaking during an emergency ZOOM meeting of CARICOM leaders on Tuesday, PM Browne noted that he was expressing support to ‘our Caribbean brothers and sisters’ at this time noting that Barbuda had suffered a similar fate in 2017.
The prime minister added that he was very pleased with what he saw as ‘a strong regional response’ to calls for assistance from the affected countries.
He said Antigua and Barbuda is very pleased with the strong culture of solidarity and support within CARICOM. In fact, he noted, that this level of support was heightened following the passage of Hurricanes Irma and Maria that devastated the region back in 2017.
He welcomed the spontaneous support for the affected countries and their peoples from across the Caribbean and he expressed the hope that this support continues to grow into the future when similarly powerful storms are expected to have similar impacts on the region.
PM Browne is also recommending to his Grenadian and St Vincentian counterparts that they seek to organize a ‘pledging conference’, perhaps under the aegis of the United Nations. This, he believes is necessary as from the photos that he has seen the level of devastation will likely value hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps even billions.
According to the prime minister… these resources are beyond the means of the Caribbean so there is a need to look outside the region for this level of funding. He explained that back in 2017, he saw the need to host such a conference which generated millions of dollars in pledges to assist the relief efforts on Barbuda.
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