Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced that chil­dren from hur­ri­cane-rav­aged re­gions in Grena­da, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines will be al­lowed to en­ter T&T and seek refuge with their fam­i­lies.

The de­ci­sion was made yes­ter­day in re­ac­tion to the press­ing need to help and sup­port the hun­dreds of in­di­vid­u­als in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Beryl’s dev­as­ta­tion and deaths on the is­lands. Grena­da and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines faced sig­nif­i­cant dev­as­ta­tion.

“Giv­en the lev­el of to­tal dev­as­ta­tion ex­pe­ri­enced on these is­lands, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­knowl­edg­ing the deep fa­mil­ial ties be­tween these is­lands and Trinidad and To­ba­go, has of­fered to al­low school-age chil­dren from the dev­as­tat­ed zones to be al­lowed in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go if they have fam­i­ly here who may wish to house them dur­ing the school hol­i­day pe­ri­od that is up­on us at this time,” the PM said.

Back in 2017, Dr Row­ley of­fered ac­com­mo­da­tion to Do­mini­cans who were left home­less fol­low­ing the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Maria. At the time, the usu­al im­mi­gra­tion re­quire­ments nec­es­sary for en­try in­to the coun­try were waived.

How­ev­er, he did not elab­o­rate on what mea­sures would be put in place for peo­ple en­ter­ing the coun­try on this oc­ca­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued on Face­book, Dr Row­ley said a vir­tu­al Cari­com meet­ing was con­vened where they re­ceived an up­date on the dev­as­ta­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Beryl.

Dr Row­ley said yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment was mo­bil­is­ing re­lief sup­plies to be ur­gent­ly dis­patched by ma­rine crafts.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with the me­dia fol­low­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of Sis­ter Bernadette de la Bastide Wing at Holy Name Con­vent in Port-of -Spain, yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said that fur­ther de­tails re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s call to ac­com­mo­date school-aged chil­dren have not been ven­ti­lat­ed, but she will not rule out fa­cil­i­tat­ing them with­in the school sys­tem.

“We haven’t heard the en­tire plan; there may be a ques­tion of stu­dents re­main­ing here to be able to go to school if that is a re­quire­ment, and once it is, then we will do what we can to as­sist. Just as what we are do­ing with the mi­grants, of course, we have an oblig­a­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens to en­sure they have school plac­ing but once we are able to as­sist, we will as­sist and we have as­sist­ed be­fore.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne told Guardian Me­dia that var­i­ous sec­tors of so­ci­ety were be­ing en­gaged to pro­vide as­sis­tance to the af­fect­ed is­lands.

“Cari­com is ful­ly mo­bilised, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, as al­ways, is con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to lend a hand to our neigh­bours in need. I have been work­ing close­ly with our Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try and oth­er arms of gov­ern­ment, and the T&T pri­vate sec­tor is al­so re­spond­ing in an ex­em­plary man­ner.

With coun­tries fac­ing a mam­moth task of re­build­ing and re­cov­ery Cari­com chair­man Dr Ir­faan Ali called on cit­i­zens across ter­ri­to­ries on Mon­day to mo­bilise the nec­es­sary re­lief items.

“I urge all cit­i­zens and the pri­vate sec­tor of our re­gion to co­or­di­nate close­ly with their re­spec­tive gov­ern­ments and re­gion­al emer­gency re­sponse mech­a­nisms in pro­vid­ing im­me­di­ate sup­port and re­lief to those af­fect­ed by the hur­ri­cane. The Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) is al­ready work­ing to mo­bilise and co­or­di­nate as­sis­tance and dis­as­ter re­lief even as the storm is still pass­ing through the Wind­ward Is­lands.”

As part of the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency’s (CDE­MA) re­sponse to the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Beryl, teams have been dis­patched to Grena­da, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines to es­tab­lish telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment. CDE­MA has al­so fa­cil­i­tat­ed the trans­porta­tion of aid and vi­tal sup­plies to the af­fect­ed is­lands.