Suriname to send aid to victims of Irma

The Surinamese government has decided to send emergency aid to the victims of Hurricane Irma. Hurricane Irma last week pummeled several Caribbean islands. Suriname will reportedly send water, rice, flour, milk, cooking oil, bed sheets and hygiene packages to Antigua and Barbuda. According to the National Information Institute, the emergency aid will be sent by order of President Desi Bouterse. Meanwhile the Suriname government has expressed sympathy and solidarity with the Caribbean islands that were pummeled by Hurricane Irma. Officials plan on sending the emergency aid before September 12. From Anguilla and Barbuda to the British and US Virgin Islands; powerful footage shows the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma. The Category 5 storm has turned Caribbean paradises into desolate wastelands after it ripped through the region last week.

Buildings have been reduced to foundations, roads left impassable, and boats tossed and piled up in marinas by one of the strongest hurricanes every recorded. At least 23 people have been confirmed dead on islands in the region, which was lashed by winds of up to 185mph. Colonel Jerry Slijngaard, coordinator at the National Coordination Center for Disaster Control (NCCR), told Times of Suriname that the emergency aid is a donation from the government. He pointed out that if the Caribbean islands need more aid, goods will be collected before being shipped to the affected islands. The NCCR is continuously in contact with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). MYANMAR- Myanmar’s military has been accused of planting landmines in the path of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in western Rakhine state, with Amnesty International reporting that two people were wounded on Sunday. Refugees’ accounts of the latest wave of violence in Rakhine have typically described shootings by soldiers and arson attacks on villages, but there are at least several cases that point to anti-personnel mines or other explosives as the cause of injuries on the border with Bangladesh, where 300,000 Rohingya have fled in the past two weeks. Reporters from Associated Press on the Bangladesh side of the border said they had seen an elderly woman with devastating leg wounds: one leg with the calf apparently blown off and the other also badly injured. Relatives said she had stepped on a landmine. Myanmar has one of the few militaries, along with North Korea and Syria, which has openly used anti-personnel mines in recent years, according to Amnesty. An international treaty in 1997 outlawed their use. Lt Col SM Ariful Islam, the commanding officer of the Bangladesh border guard in Teknaf, said on Friday that he was aware of at least three Rohingya injured in explosions. Bangladeshi officials and Amnesty researchers believe new explosives have been recently planted, including one that the rights group said blew off a Bangladeshi farmer’s leg and another that wounded a Rohingya man. Both incidents occurred on Sunday. It said at least three people including two children had been injured in the past week. “It may not be landmines, but I know there have been isolated cases of Myanmar soldiers planting explosives three to four days ago,” Ariful said on Friday. Myanmar’s presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, did not answer phone calls seeking comment on Sunday. Myat Min Oo, a military spokesman, said he could not comment without talking to his superiors. A major at the border guard police headquarters in northern Maungdaw near the Bangladesh border also refused to comment. Amnesty said that based on interviews with witnesses and analysis by its own weapons experts, it believed there had been targeted use of landmines along a narrow stretch of the northwestern border of Rakhine state that is a crossing point for fleeing Rohingya.