Citing 'Inadequate' Response From US Government, Oxfam Will Step in to Aid Puerto Rico
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, as Donald Trump heads to a devastated Puerto Rico whose residents he claimed “want everything to be done for them,” there is still very little cell phone service, only 5 percent of the electrical grid is back up, roads and bridges are destroyed, and over half the island lacks running water. When the Defense Department belatedly sent Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan to head up relief efforts, he called the damage “the worst I’ve ever seen,” describing it as “like an atomic bomb went off.” The situation facing the US Virgin Islands is disastrously similar.
Oxfam America, a global anti-poverty organization, has taken the unusual step of getting involved in a disaster being managed by a wealthy first-world nation, something they don’t normally do.
“Oxfam has monitored the response in Puerto Rico closely, and we are outraged at the slow and inadequate response the US government has mounted in Puerto Rico,” Oxfam America president Abby Maxman said in a statement on Tuesday. “Clean water, food, fuel, electricity, and health care are in desperately short supply and quickly dwindling, and we’re hearing excuses and criticism from the administration instead of a cohesive and compassionate response.”
Scott Paul, Oxfam America’s senior humanitarian policy advisor, spoke to Jezebel about the organization’s decision to dive in.
“In the United States, as in most wealthy and frankly even middle-income countries, we assume that the government will lead in any disaster response, and that civil society will work together with the government and fill the gaps and hold the government accountable,” Paul said.
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https://theslot.jezebel.com/in-rebuke-to-trump-administration-oxfam-moves-in-to-ai-1819105164
Oxfam slams US response in Puerto Rico as 'slow, inadequate'
Source: The Hill
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 10/03/17 07:28 AM EDT
Oxfam America is stepping in to help Puerto Rico, saying the Trump administration's response has been “inadequate."
The global non-profit's president, Abby Maxman, said in a statement Tuesday that the group is “outraged” at the U.S. government’s slow response in Puerto Rico, where more than half of the population is without clean drinking water, and food and electricity are scarce in the wake of Hurricane Maria. “We’re hearing excuses and criticism from the administration instead of a cohesive and compassionate response,” Maxman said.
The organization primarily focuses on humanitarian aid in developing nations and rarely helps wealthy countries like the U.S., but says it is making an exception as the situation in Puerto Rico worsens.
Maxman said the group will join with Puerto Rican leaders to work with Congress and federal agencies to organize relief efforts, adding that a team has been sent to San Juan to provide direct resources to residents, particularly in rural communities.
Read more:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/353563-oxfam-steps-in-to-help-puerto-rico-slamming-us-response-as-slow
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