Two months after the devastating passage of Hurricane Irma, the French Red Cross is still as committed to Saint-Martinois to help them. As evidenced by the arrival today in Saint-Martin of the President of the French Red Cross, Jean-Jacques Eledjam, still concerned about the current situation!
“Yes, on the night of September 5 to 6, the Caribbean, and particularly Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, were facing one of the most terrible trials in their history. Even before Irma's arrival, the French Red Cross had launched its emergency response system and emergency situations. In the field, in a very difficult context, it deployed to help the disaster victims. More than 300 of its metropolitan volunteers came to lend a hand to the 500 active and salaried volunteers from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy and Guyana. Its “Caribbean America Regional Intervention Platform” (PIRAC) went on high alert, in order to strengthen, in particular, the essential logistical support.
On the spot, chaos: all the witnesses expressed this feeling of "end of the world". Familiar places brutally erased from the landscape, landmarks that shatter, lives that rock in the face of a situation whose implacable violence no one could imagine.
It was the urgency that had to be managed, with, for example, the distribution of 80.000 liters of water every day or basic necessities to respond to the health threat. Thanks to the numerous donations collected and the exceptional mobilization of its team members, the French Red Cross has been on the front line alongside the State services to act, respond and support.
Yes, Irma was devastating. Yes, this region of the globe has been and will continue to be the target of climatic events whose strength will continue to grow. Admittedly, the Red Cross works daily to prepare populations, but here, on French territory, it is not only a question of environmental fragility: it is a question of social fragility.
It is a fragmented and unequal society that has been hit. An environment where the contrast is striking between the wealthiest and the very poor. Territories where massive unemployment, unworthy housing and a level of precariousness add up, that it often results in a form of "social invisibility".
How then can we hope that this society will be able to recover from such catastrophes? How can we count on the resilience of populations if precarious precariousness exposes a large part of the population?
So yes, we have to rebuild. Of course, we need to provide these regions with equipment adapted to the risks involved, in order to prepare for new challenges of this nature. But in doing so, a whole collective organization needs to be restored. Take actions dedicated to housing, education, care, justice. Create the conditions for targeted support for people, psychological support for returning to work. Support community life. To be effective and meaningful, all of these actions must be designed and implemented with local populations.
Today, in the post-emergency phase, the priorities are clear: let's give our fellow citizens the means to prepare but also to get up. Post-emergency is social emergency.
The imperative is to favor the emergence of a more united and more coherent society, on the rubble of hurricanes which we would like to have also swept away the evils of an overly vulnerable collective. I hope that such a vision can be shared, at a time when the Prime Minister is in the French Antilles in order to express all national solidarity to their populations. Because if the French Red Cross is going to work in the coming months to work in concert with the inhabitants of these bruised territories, it will not be able to act alone. The stake is such, that it will require a broad mobilization, around objectives validated at the highest level of the State.
I will have the opportunity myself to go there from 11 to 15 November, to meet the inhabitants and the public authorities. To the teams of the French Red Cross, I will say the respect which inspires the work they have accomplished. I will also tell them that the hardest part begins: an integral and meticulous reconstruction, commensurate with the disarray but also with the hope that our compatriots in the Antilles feel. ”
Jean-Jacques Eledjam, President of the French Red Cross, University Professor, Doctor of Medicine
As a reminder, some key figures of the actions carried out by the Red Cross:
- 410 metropolitan team members mobilized in the Antilles since September 6 from 67 departments. On average, 130 volunteers hired each day
- 12 water tanks installed on the island, fitted with sanitary water distribution ramps which have provided 80 liters of water each day.
- More than 11 people welcomed at Saint-Martin and Pointe-à-Pitre airports
- Distributions of basic necessities
- 3 hygiene kits
- 1 cleaning kits
- 568 solar lights (also used to charge laptops)
- 8 jerry cans
- 1 kitchen kits
- 1 shelter and tarpaulin kits
- 2 mosquito nets
- 5 beneficiaries seen at distribution points or during patrols going to meet isolated people or people with reduced mobility, in disadvantaged neighborhoods
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