Food Aid Distributed to Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic

The United Nations World Food Program is distributing food to people affected by Tropical Storm Noel in the countries of Haiti, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Food is being transported from WFP facilities in Barbados and El Salvador to countries which were hit by the storm.

According to a United Nations press release issued on Thursday, the World Food Program is currently delivering food to shelters in Haiti, transporting food to isolated communities in the Dominican Republic via helicopter, and bringing food to Mexico's hard-hit Tabasco province by truck.

The press release indicates that a convoy of WFP trucks is transporting five days worth of ready-to-eat meals from a facility in El Salvador to Mexico, which was hit by severe flooding from the storm. The WFP's Executive Director was quoted as saying that the agency is working to bring the food assistance as quickly as possible, pointing out that Mexico had been generous to other countries hit by natural disasters in the past.

The WFP has provided food assistance to nineteen-thousand people affected by the storm in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, which received severe damage from the storm. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, helicopters offered by U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Coast Guard are being used to deliver "high energy" biscuits to areas flooded by the storm. Additional food is to arrive from a facility in Barbados later in the week.

The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has appealed for additional funding to help supply the relief efforts being carried out by the World Food Program and other agencies in the Dominican Republic.

The wikipedia.org entry on Hurricane/Tropical Storm Noel indicates that the storm appeared in late October and affected several countries in the Caribbean before heading up the east coast of the U.S. and Canada. In addition to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico, it caused damage in Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, some parts of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S., and Nova Scotia.

According to the CIA World Factbook entry on the Dominican Republic, it is a nation of 9.36 million people which is just over two times as large as the state of New Hampshire. It was formerly named Santo Domingo (now the name of its capitol) when it was part of Haiti; it separated from Haiti in 1844, then was a Spanish colony before becoming independent in 1865. The island Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located on is known as Hispaniola.

Sources:

1. United Nations, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24586
2. CIA World Factbook (public domain), https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/dr.html
3. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Noel_(2007)