India gives Haiti $1 mn for emergency relief, Indian peacekeepers safe
By IANSThursday, January 14, 2010
NEW DELHI - India will give $1 million in cash for immediate emergency relief in quake-devastated Haiti. Indian peacekeepers and civilian police officers in the island nation have been ascertained to be safe.
Tens of thousands of people are feared dead in Tuesday’s 7.0 magnitude quake that has reduced the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to rubble.
Stating that India was “deeply saddened at the death and destruction” due to the quake, the Indian government Thursday decided “to give $1 million in cash to Haiti for immediate and emergency relief purposes”.
A statement issued by External Affairs ministry said that while communications with Haiti were still very difficult, it had been ascertained that all 140 Indian United Nations peacekeepers were safe, as were all civil police officers deployed with the United Nations Mission in Haiti.
But the fate of 40-50 Indian families, including several nuns working with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity who live scattered around the islands, is still not known. “There is no news of them,” said an official.
The ministry is in touch with the Indian embassy in Cuba, which is concurrently accredited to Haiti, to “ascertain the welfare of other Indian nationals who are presently in Haiti”.
