(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica is at the helm of a CARICOM Mission which arrived in Haiti on the morning of Saturday, 6 February.

The Mission team includes CARICOM Secretary-General, His Excellency Edwin Carrington; CARICOM Special Representative to Haiti, Most Honourable Percival Patterson; CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General, Foreign and Community Relations, Ambassador Colin Granderson; and the Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Mr Jeremy Collymore.

The team will meet with the President of Haiti, His Excellency René Préval and members of his cabinet. They will also meet with Brigadier (ret) Earl Arthurs, Co-coordinator of the CARICOM Relief Effort in Haiti, and interact with the members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) at Camp Good Neighbour where they will observe the work of the CARICOM contingent. That contingent, led by Jamaica, has been providing medical and security assistance to Haiti from the day after the catastrophic earthquake of 12 January.

Haiti is within the area for which Jamaica is the sub-regional focal point in the system established by CDEMA, the regional response mechanism in respect of natural disasters.

The team will also be visiting the CARICOM Representational Office in Haiti for discussions with the staff and will be given an aerial tour of Port-au-Prince and Leogane. The Mission leaves Haiti on Saturday afternoon.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org