A boatload of “Trini love” arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines yesterday to render aid and deliver supplies amid the country’s struggle to survive in the face of the erupting La Soufriere volcano.
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves expressed his gratitude to T&T prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and the T&T Defence Force for the shipment of supplies its members brought to the island yesterday.
“You are Good Samaritans and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Gonsalves told the T&T Defence Force contingent.
“And I want to send a message to my brother (Prime Minister Dr) Keith (Rowley), to tell him thanks.”
He said both Rowley and Minister of National Security Stuart Young were “excellent men.”
“I want to thank the people of T&T for coming to our help. God Bless you,” Gonsalves said.
The prime minister went on to say that the people of T&T and the people of St Vincent were linked.
“We are brothers and sisters,” he said.
Gonsalves said his departed mother was a T&T citizen and joked that he was entitled to a citizenship.
“My wife is a Trinidadian, so I am entitled to it by marriage but if I go to take citizenship, they would say I have taken the citizenship of a Republic, someone who does not have the Queen as the Head of State and they would challenge whether I am qualified to be a Member of Parliament,” he said.
“So, I just leave those and I enjoy T&T when I go down there.”
The Galleons Passage let T&T early yesterday morning carrying 50 members of the TTDF and supplies. The ship was just one of the many going in with supplies to assist the people who were forced to evacuate away from the blast site of the volcano.
Yesterday, Gonsalves said they immedaitely needed food, water, cot and mattresses, especially for those people in the shlters.
“What Trinidad and Tobago, the people and Governmet of Trinidad and Tobago have done here is love… It is being manifested today in our Caribbean family and in our Vincentian family,” he said.
“This is a test for us, we are not a people of lamentations … morning by morning new mercies we see, all that we need thy hand has provided, great is thy faithfulness.”
He added too that while many had evacuated from the red zone, Vincentians were not keen on taking up the offer of going to other islands for refuge.
“Nobody has been evacuated, we gave the option, Grenada given a commitment to take 250, Dominica similar number, Antigua and St Kitts. We had said with Barbados, St Lucia and Trinidad, the way things are, it doesn’t make sense we pursue that option with them because several reasons but one most powerful, the people do not want to go!” Gonsalves said.
“They want to stay, endure this and help to rebuild their country. What a thing, what a magnificent story. You have a small number who want to go and those who wish to go for a short period of time, we would facilitate them.
“One of the cruise ships has left, they would have stayed around but they went to change their crew, if we want them they will come back. But if the numbers are not large, we have a lot of vessels which ply between St Vincent and the Grenadines, we can always charter them if it’s 30, 40, or 100 but we will have more time for that.”
However, things were not all smooth sailing for the Galleons Passage yesterday. When the vessel arrived in Kingstown around 3.30 pm, it took about an hour and a half to dock.
Once the vessel was docked, Gonsalves boarded the cargo area and was shown the relief items by a Lieutenant Colonel of the T&T Defence Force.
However only three water trucks, Defence Force and Coast Guard vehicles were eventually able to leave the vessel.
This because the St Vincent and the Grenadines Port Authority said they did not have the necessary equipment and manpower to remove the relief items, which included bottled water and a large generator. Officials are now hoping to offload the vessel today and it will likely delay its departure until Thursday.
—With reporting by Renuka Singh
