Maduro to visit Saturday

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, taking part during an interview with Mexican TV host and journalist Adela Micha, at Venezuela's Military School, in Caracas, Venezuela

Sept. 15, 2015

Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro is to visit Dominica on Saturday, Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has announced.

In an update of the reconstruction programme after the devastation of Tropical Storm Erika, Skerrit said today that the Venezuelan government has provided 300 houses to Dominica and President Maduro is to make a symbolic presentation of the grant during his visit.

"We expect the first 50 houses to be here in the next couple weeks," said Skerrit.

Since the storm Venezuela has sent three shipments of humanitarian assistance to Dominica, totaling 13 tons of supplies.

The third shipment consists of 10 tons of medication, food and drinking water.

A Venezuelan helicopter, dispatched the same day the storm struck carried out 25 rescue missions in the first 48 hours and was used later to evacuate 40 people from hard-hit Petite Savanne.

Venezuela has also provided six emergency-response specialists and the state oil company, PDVSA, has provided 30,000 liters (7,925 gallons) of fuel, 3,000 cylinders of cooking gas and heavy machinery to support reconstruction efforts.

Erika destroyed or damaged 271 houses (217 in Petite Savanne and 54 elsewhere), the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) has reported.