As victims of Hurricane Dean slowly try to rebuild their shattered lives, the World Food Programme announced that its emergency feeding operations, centralised here in Barbados, are assisting about 10,500 of the worst affected in Jamaica and Belize.

“While Hurricane Dean may have vanished from the front pages of the newspapers, the reality of its destructive power lives on in the lives of thousands of very poor people who must begin to put their lives back together again,” said Carlo Scaramella, who is managing WFP‘s regional response to Belize. “WFP‘s emergency food rations are a key first step that will ensure these people can begin the process of rebuilding.”

In Jamaica, a total of 5,500 people will be receiving complementary food assistance which will consist of a 450 kcal ration per day of High-Energy Biscuits (HEBs) for a duration of two weeks. The victims are part of more than 30,000 people whose livelihoods have been affected when 200 km/h winds damaged housing, infrastructure and crops on in the southern and south-eastern part of the island.

An additional 5,000 people in Belize will be receiving a full daily ration which will continue for a period of two months and which will consist of rice, pulses, vegetable oil, and HEBs. All of the beneficiaries suffered a dramatic loss in their livelihoods means.

The cost of the emergency response is $256,131 US which will be paid out of WFP‘s Immediate Response Account.

In both cases, preparation before the storm and prompt action afterwards by WFP regional emergency team enabled supplies flow quickly to those affected.

A critical role in the response was played by WFP‘s Regional Centre for Humanitarian Response, recently established in El Salvador, where food and other equipment supplies are stored.

For Jamaica the response was coordinated through the WFP Caribbean emergency hub in Barbados with crucial support from the WFP Country Office in Haiti.