分类： society

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Five months after Hurricane Melissa made landfall and caused widespread damage across Jamaica, the island nation’s disaster management agency has secured more than JA$1.4 billion in donations from a global network of supporters to fund recovery and long-term resilience work.

Commander Alvin Gayle, Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), announced the updated donation figures during an April 15 post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House. As of March 31, more than 17,000 individual and institutional donors have contributed to post-hurricane reconstruction efforts, which launched after the storm hit the country on October 28 last year.

To streamline giving, ODPEM set up multiple donation channels: an online payment gateway integrated into the official Support Jamaica portal for digital contributions, as well as dedicated local bank accounts for both Jamaican dollar and U.S. dollar direct transfers. Gayle confirmed that roughly 80 percent of all total donations arrived via direct bank transfers, highlighting the preference for direct giving among large and institutional donors.

The donor pool represents a broad cross-section of partners, ranging from local community members and domestic businesses to regional blocs, international governments, global non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from across the world. After accounting for currency conversions, net donations deposited in ODPEM-managed accounts total JA$1,478,269,567, Gayle confirmed.

To date, a portion of the pooled funds has already been allocated to two core priority areas aligned with the government’s national recovery strategy: the public Shelter Recovery Programme and the purchase of heavy construction equipment to boost national disaster response capacity. Per a donor request, the equipment purchase is already greenlit for funding.

So far, JA$146 million in donated cash has gone toward the government-led roof repair initiative, which has been further bolstered by an in-kind donation of $400 million worth of roofing materials from international and local partners. An additional JA$7.2 million has been disbursed to cover logistics and operational costs for the housing recovery program.

As of the latest update, 410 damaged residential roofs have been fully completed under the program, with dozens more scheduled for construction in the coming weeks. Gayle noted that total program spending will rise as more projects move forward, adding that all beneficiaries have been vetted for vulnerability by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to ensure support reaches the communities most in need.

Separately, JA$320 million in donations has been earmarked for the procurement of heavy construction equipment designed to strengthen Jamaica’s emergency response capabilities. According to Gayle, this allocation does more than just address the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Melissa: it represents a long-term strategic investment that will upgrade the country’s entire national disaster preparedness and resilience infrastructure for future extreme weather events.

The remaining unspent donation balance will be held in reserve and allocated to additional recovery and resilience projects as needed, including the upcoming rapid deployable modular housing initiative, which is designed to provide emergency shelter quickly after future natural disasters.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian civil defense authorities have officially confirmed that severe flooding triggered by three days of torrential rain in early April has claimed at least 12 lives across the country’s northwest department, leaving a trail of widespread destruction that has displaced thousands of residents and disrupted critical public services.

Preliminary assessments from the Departmental Directorate of Civil Protection show the extreme weather event, which unfolded between April 11 and 13, hit three local municipalities — Port-de-Paix, Saint-Louis du Nord, and Anse-à-Foleur — the hardest. The relentless downpour pushed multiple river systems over their banks, including the major Rivière des Trois Rivières, submerging entire communities and creating an urgent humanitarian emergency that officials warn could escalate if additional rainfall arrives.

Most of the fatalities were recorded in rural areas of Saint-Louis du Nord, where the 12 victims either died in rain-triggered landslides or were swept away by fast-moving floodwaters. Multiple people have also sustained serious injuries, and an unknown number of residents remain unaccounted for, including local fishermen and riverside inhabitants in Anse-à-Foleur.

Official data indicates more than 2,500 families have been directly impacted by the disaster. Hundreds of residents were forced to flee their inundated properties overnight, taking shelter with host relatives or in makeshift emergency camps set up by local volunteers. Preliminary damage surveys count roughly 1,200 flooded residential properties, while all three municipalities have seen local schools and health facilities swamped with muddy floodwater. The contamination and structural damage have rendered these essential service sites inaccessible, cutting off affected communities from basic education and medical care.

The disaster has also delivered a severe blow to local agricultural livelihoods: hundreds of head of livestock, a critical economic asset for small-scale family farmers across the region, have been washed away, resulting in catastrophic financial losses for already vulnerable households.

Local government leaders have already issued an urgent appeal to Haiti’s national central government for immediate life-saving support. Among the most urgently needed supplies are food rations, clean drinking water, personal hygiene kits, and sanitation infrastructure, which local authorities say are critical to heading off a secondary public health crisis in crowded displacement sites.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The 2026 Kingston Carnival season has been celebrated as a major economic win for the Jamaican capital, even as city leaders grapple with an outbreak of violence that left three people wounded over the weekend. Andrew Swaby, Mayor of Kingston, stressed that the annual celebration delivered widespread growth across multiple local industries, standing by his assessment of the event as a resounding success in spite of the shooting at the popular Big Wall carnival party.

In an official statement released this week, Swaby emphasized that Carnival has solidified its position as a key economic driver for Kingston, injecting new energy into the city’s urban core and spurring activity across hospitality, retail, transportation and countless small business sectors. “Once again, the event has proven its lasting value, and its growing economic importance to our city cannot be overstated,” Swaby said. “I want to extend my sincere recognition to the mas bands, event organizers, and thousands of patrons who came together to make this year’s celebration a success.”

Swaby detailed that the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) embedded itself in the planning process from the very beginning, working hand-in-hand with event stakeholders to fine-tune logistics, coordinate public services, and lay the groundwork for smooth execution. This year’s event, he argued, serves as a powerful model for what public-private collaboration can achieve when paired with intentional strategic planning and a shared commitment to delivering a high-quality experience for all attendees.

Among the most notable improvements highlighted by the mayor was a marked upgrade in waste management and post-event cleanup operations. Swaby reported that city crews cleared parade routes and event spaces far faster than in previous years following the annual road march, cutting down on environmental disruption and returning downtown streets to normal daily use in record time. He called this progress a major milestone, crediting the hard work and dedication of municipal cleaning teams and event staff. To address longstanding concerns about paint stains left on public infrastructure from Carnival activities, organizers and municipal officials tested all paint used in parades and events to ensure formulations could be easily and fully removed after the celebration, a proactive step designed to minimize avoidable disruption to the city.

Even as leaders celebrated the event’s many wins, they did not shy away from addressing the violent incident that marred the final weekend of the season. Swaby issued a firm condemnation of the shooting at the Big Wall carnival party, which left three people injured: one a bystander, and including popular local podcaster Jaii Frais. Local reports confirm the incident involved music producer Jahvy Ambassador, associates of dancehall artist 450, and Frais, and Jahvy Ambassador has since been taken into police custody. Organizers of the Big Wall event have already issued a public apology for the violence.

“We unequivocally condemn all acts of violence that took place at this event,” Swaby said. “Our thoughts are with everyone who was injured, and we extend our deepest wishes for a fast and full recovery to all three affected individuals.”

ISTANBUL — Just 24 hours after a separate school shooting left 16 wounded in southeastern Turkey, a second mass shooting at a middle school in the country’s southern Kahramanmaras province has sent the nation into mourning, leaving nine dead and 13 injured in an attack that upended Turkey’s long history of rare school violence. The shooter, identified by local officials as a 14-year-old eighth-grade student, carried five licensed firearms and seven ammunition magazines belonging to his father, a former police officer, into the school campus on Wednesday morning. What followed was chaos: the teen opened fire indiscriminately across two classrooms, forcing terrified students to leap from first-floor windows to escape the gunfire. Dramatic, AFP-verified footage captured by a nearby resident shows students scrambling across the school courtyard, with roughly 15 gunshots audible across a 90-second clip of the attack.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci confirmed that nine people lost their lives in the shooting, and 13 wounded people were rushed to local hospitals, with six patients remaining in intensive care and three in critical condition as of Wednesday evening. The shooter himself died during the incident, and local governor Mukerrem Unluer told reporters it remains unclear whether the death was a suicide or an accidental killing amid the chaos of the attack. Law enforcement has since detained the shooter’s father, Ugur Mersinli, for questioning, per reporting from Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency. Video released by Turkey’s private IHA news outlet showed emergency workers evacuating covered bodies from the campus, while dozens of distraught parents gathered outside the school gates waiting for updates on their children. Law enforcement has locked down the campus perimeter, and top Turkish officials including the interior and education ministers traveled to Kahramanmaras to oversee the response, with prosecutors opening an immediate investigation into the incident.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered an official statement on social media platform X, calling the attack an unmitigated tragedy. “In this tragic attack, we unfortunately lost our bright young children and a devoted educator,” he wrote, adding that authorities would fully investigate every detail of the shooting and urging the public not to politicize the national grief. The Wednesday shooting follows a similar attack just one day prior, in Sanliurfa province’s Siverek district, where a former student opened fire with a shotgun at his old high school, wounding 16 people — 10 of them students — before killing himself during a police confrontation. Following the Tuesday attack, law enforcement detained one suspect and suspended four school officials from their posts, and ordered the affected school closed for four days.

The back-to-back attacks have sparked urgent debate over school safety across Turkey. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel argued that the violence can no longer be written off as a series of isolated events. “At this point, it is clearly evident that violence in schools can no longer be explained by isolated incidents,” Ozel wrote on X. “This issue has turned into a growing and deepening security vulnerability.” He called for immediate implementation of sweeping new security measures, including full access control at all school entry and exit points, increased on-campus security staff, upgraded campus camera systems, more frequent police patrols around school grounds, and updated emergency response plans. “The security of schools is entrusted to our state. No negligence or deficiency in this regard can be excused anymore,” Ozel added.

Until this week, school shootings have been extremely rare in Turkey, which enforces some of the strictest gun control regulations in the region. All firearms in the country require official licensing, mandatory registration, mental health screenings and criminal background checks for owners, with heavy criminal penalties for unlicensed gun possession. The most recent high-profile school shooting prior to this week occurred in May 2024 in Istanbul, where a expelled former student shot and killed a private high school principal months after he was dismissed from the school.

On Tuesday, Jamaica’s Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) deepened its probe into longstanding mismanagement allegations at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), uncovering fresh troubling evidence of systemic improper governance that has raised serious alarms among lawmakers. The review was launched following the release of a damning special audit report from the auditor general into the public hospital’s daily operations and financial management. What PAC members heard during Tuesday’s hearing left many top committee officials stunned: senior UHWI executives confirmed that the major public health institution carries a staggering $40 billion in unpaid tax obligations to the state, and has not developed any formal structured repayment plan to resolve the massive liability. Compounding this revelation, the hospital continues to operate under a temporary tax compliance certificate, a temporary status that is meant only for entities working to resolve outstanding compliance issues, rather than holding billions in unpaid taxes. The hearing also exposed another contradiction in the hospital leadership’s previous accounts: UHWI executives had previously claimed that severe flooding at the facility destroyed key physical files linked to multiple millions of dollars in awarded contracts, but they walked back that explanation during questioning before the PAC. Lawmakers also pressed executives on reports that an outside private entity was allowed to use UHWI’s official tax-exempt import status to bring goods into the country, resulting in more than $10 million in unpaid customs duties that the public is now forced to absorb. UHWI representatives gave inconsistent, halting responses when asked to explain how the private company gained access to the hospital’s tax-exempt privileges. As one of the Caribbean’s leading public teaching and referral hospitals, the ongoing governance and financial irregularities at UHWI have sparked growing public concern about oversight of state-funded health institutions, and the PAC is expected to continue its review of the audit findings in upcoming hearings, with further questioning of hospital leadership planned.