WASHINGTON: The USA stated Monday (Mar 31) it has dispatched a catastrophe reduction workforce to Myanmar days after a major earthquake, defending the tempo of the deployment following President Donald Trump’s dismantling of America’s major abroad help company.
The USA has introduced US$2 million in assist to assist organisations on the bottom in Myanmar, the place the earthquake dying toll has surpassed 2000.
“A US help workforce of humanitarian specialists primarily based within the area are touring to Burma now to determine the folks’s most urgent wants, together with emergency shelter, meals, medical wants and entry to water,” State Division spokeswoman Tammy Bruce informed reporters, utilizing Myanmar’s outdated identify.
The earthquake struck Friday, on the identical day that Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated he was formally dissolving the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID), arguing that the “beneficial properties have been too few and the prices have been too excessive”, after chopping greater than 80 per cent of its initiatives.
China, Russia and India have already despatched groups to Myanmar. Traditionally the USA, below the steerage of USAID, has swiftly dispatched rescue groups and reduction around the globe following earthquakes and different pure disasters.
Requested if the US response was slower than common, Bruce stated: “I’d reject the notion that that is clearly a results of the USAID cuts and that type of funding. There are a lot of totally different components to this dynamic.”
