Pope Francis is sending financial support to the people of Haiti, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, where natural disasters and the pandemic have caused great suffering.
The material aid joins the spiritual support in prayer and closeness that the Pope has offered the challenged people of these and other nations, particularly called for an end to the violence in Haiti. The Holy Father has persistently called for the international community to come to the aid of the beleaguered nations.
Following the earthquake that struck Haiti with extraordinary vehemence, claiming – according to data from the local authorities – at least 2,200 lives and injuring more than 12,000, as well as extensive material damage, Pope Francis, via the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, has decided to send an initial contribution of 200,000 euros to help the population in this emergency phase, which adds to an already difficult situation due to COVID-19.
This sum, which will be distributed in collaboration with the Apostolic Nunciature among the dioceses most affected by the disaster, will be used to assist the earthquake victims and is intended to be an immediate expression of the feeling of spiritual closeness and paternal encouragement towards the people and territories affected, manifested by the Holy Father following the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday 15 August 2021 with the invocation of Our Lady’s protection.
This contribution, which accompanies prayer in support of the beloved Haitian population, is part of the aid that is being activated throughout the Catholic Church and which involves, in addition to various Episcopal Conferences, numerous charitable organizations.
The Holy Father has also decided to send initial emergency aid totaling around 69,000 dollars to the people of Bangladesh, recently hit by Cyclone Yaas; and 100,000 euros to the people of Vietnam, who are in a state of grave due to the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The earthquake, which struck on the morning of August 14 with a magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale, and was also felt in Jamaica, had its epicenter about 150 km west of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and devastated entire regions of the south and southwest. To date, 2,207 are dead, 344 missing, and more than 12,000 injured. Entire inland areas have been razed to the ground and homes have come down with avalanches of land already made fragile by aggressive deforestation that has marked the island for years. And what the earthquake did not destroy, the tropical storm that hit the archipelago in recent days did.
