Volcanic eruptions on St. Vincent since last week have displaced about 20 percent of the Caribbean island’s population, and ash from La Soufrière volcano has coated St. Vincent and neighboring islands, including Barbados.
A UN official warned of a growing humanitarian crisis, and that 20,000 people are “estimated at risk of food insecurity, given the loss of the assets in terms of livelihood like fisheries, or agriculture." (Associated Press)
The ash is contaminating crops and drinking water in the area. The PAHO voiced concern over its impact on human health. (Caribbean News Service)
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a news conference Tuesday that he estimated the eruptions have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. (Washington Post)
While the volcano's explosions have been getting weaker and less frequent, this does not mean that the eruption has ended, according to volcanologist, Professor Richard Robertson. (iWitness News)
And the longer La Soufrière's activity lasts, the more dire St. Vincent's situation becomes, warns Janine Mendes-Francoin Global Voices.
St. Vincent officials are concerned that the ongoing volcanic eruption on the island will drive up Covid-19 cases. Lack of clean water and overcrowding among evacuees are hampering prevention efforts, reports the Associated Press.
The U.N. is set to launch a funding appeal to support Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. (List of places to donate -- Loop)
More La Soufrière
- The LatAm Review looks at how journalists in St. Vincent cover historic eruption of volcano in middle of pandemic, despite ash and limited resources.
Migration
- The Dominican Republic launched a plan to legalize Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the country between 2014 and 2020. Government officials said 17,000 Venezuelan's applied normalize their immigration status within the plan's first 48 hours. (Hoy Digital, NTN24)
Climate Justice and Energy
- With dozens of countries struggling to manage both staggering debt and mounting climate disasters, some financial leaders are calling for green debt relief, reports the New York Times.
- An active Atlantic hurricane season is looming just a few weeks away. Experts predict some 17 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes (category 3 or above). The annual average is 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. (Barbados Today)
- A coroner’s inquest into victims lost during the 2019 Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas features difficult testimony. Given the intensity of the storm, it would have been difficult for anyone to survive outdoors or indoors, Deputy Director of the Department of Meteorology Michael Stubbs testified. (Eyewitness News, Eyewitness News)
- The design flaws, which have plagued the Liza Destiny’s gas compressor system, make it an unacceptable danger to not only Guyana but the Caribbean as well, international lawyer Melinda Janki told Kaieteur News. It is therefore required of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fulfill its role as an effective regulator and shut down the operations now, she argues.
Democratic Governance
- A rare congressional hearing has brought a new sense of urgency among U.S. lawmakers debating whether to support statehood for Puerto Rico or a different pathway towards determining the U.S. territory's relationship to the federal government, reports NBC News. Bills for both options are currently before Congress.
- Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe resigned early Wednesday, in the wake of a crime surge that has pushed the country deeper into a political quagmire that has become a constitutional crisis, reports the Miami Herald. President Jovenel Moïse appointed Foreign Minister Claude Joseph as acting interim prime minister -- the sixth since 2017. Moïse has been ruling by executive fiat since January 2020, after the terms of most members of Parliament expired.
- A Catholic Mass led by Haiti’s leading bishops to bring attention to the country’s surging violence ended yesterday in tear gas, gunshots and chaos in Port-au-Prince, reports the Miami Herald. Dubbed the “Mass for the freedom of Haiti,” the service was packed with crowds spilling onto the sidewalk and into the streets, protesting a rash of violent kidnappings that has the country under siege.
Public Security
- Armed men broke into a Haitian orphanage, killing a guard and sexually assaulting two children, reports the Miami Herald. The orphanage attack has triggered a new level of anger and disgust with Haiti’s growing insecurity and the government’s inability to tackle the problem.
Women's Rights
- Jamaican police insist that according to their statistics, femicides are not on the rise, but a string of murders and attacks on women this year has set society on edge and sparked an emotional response among Jamaican netizens, writes Emma Lewis at Global Voices.
Workers' Rights
- Several Bahamas businesses have reportedly attempted to implement mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policies for their workers, a move that the country's labour director warned was illegal. (Eyewitness News)
Justice
- The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the institutional crystallisation of two long-enduring movements within the Caribbean legal field, argues Salvatore Caserta in a "The Extended Foundation of the Caribbean Court of Justice between Decolonisation and Globalisation."
Health
- Organizers of the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September are trying to ensure that the voices and opinions of those who are usually not listened to— women, youth, smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples— are at the heart of the event's action-driven agenda. (Forbes)
- Most Caricom countries are net food importers, and at least seven countries import more than 80 percent of the food they consume. Unhealthy imported foods are a scourge to the region's health, and climate change is affecting the region's already limited agricultural production, warns Julio Berdegué in Caribbean News Network.
Culture
- Jamaican writer Diana McCaulay's dystopian future novel features a fictional Caribbean island suffering the impact of climate change. The sun is so hot that people must sleep in the day and live and work at night. In a world of desperate scarcity, people who reach forty are expendable. (Dragonfly.eco)
- New Caribbean literature -- just out or on its way -- Kei Miller
Events
17 April
- Astronomy in the Caribbean -- Moray House
30 April
- Registration for Resources Mobilisation Digithon -- an opportunity for artist a and cultural professionals to come "face to face" online with stakeholders, investors, and funders in the creative and cultural industry sector.
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