By Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States is providing $24 million in emergency assistance for Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas and Cuba after the countries were hit by Hurricane Melissa last week, the State Department said on Tuesday.
The department deployed teams to help with the emergency response and assess humanitarian needs after the Category 5 hurricane sowed widespread devastation, cut off communities and killed at least 50 people across the Caribbean.
The Trump administration has now authorized $12 million of assistance for Jamaica, $8.5 million for Haiti and $500,000 for the Bahamas, the State Department said in a statement.
“Our teams on the ground have been assessing damage, and we’re going to announce additional assistance packages over the coming days as they figure out where best to target it,” a senior State Department official said, adding that they expected to announce additional aid for Jamaica and Haiti.
Another $3 million was authorized for Cuba and is being distributed with the help of the Catholic Church, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a declaration of humanitarian need for the country and said Washington would seek to deliver aid directly to the country’s people.
President Donald Trump has taken a hard line toward the communist-run island. His administration said it would enforce a ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba while supporting an economic embargo of the country.
The State Department is working with the church to ensure it is able to get access to U.S.-funded supplies to distribute to the people of Cuba, the official said.
The Cuban government has not requested assistance from Washington, the official added.
“Regardless of what the Cuban regime says, we care about the Cuban people, and we are heartened that so far the Cuban government has not interfered with the provision of assistance,” the official said.
Hurricane Melissa is the largest natural disaster to hit the region since President Donald Trump’s administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year.
Disaster response is now managed by the State Department, which has sent Disaster Assistance Response Teams to several countries to coordinate the aid response and deployed specialist Urban Search and Rescue teams to Jamaica.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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