LatinNews Daily - 04 November 2025

*The United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) has estimated that almost six million people across Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti have been impacted by the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall as a category 5 storm in Jamaica last week before hitting other Caribbean nations. It is one of the most powerful storms to have hit the Caribbean. Yesterday Cuba’s presidency said that so far 78,7000 hectares of crops had been damaged by the storm, more than half of which were banana plantations, while over 120,000 people were still in evacuation centres. A 2 November update on Cuba by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) warns “severe damage persists in electricity, telecommunications, infrastructure, and water supply services”, while the “preliminary figure of 60,000 damaged homes could be significantly higher”. Fatalities have yet to be reported in Cuba although a 31 October BBC report cites Cuban authorities as saying that “almost 240 communities have been cut off due to flooding and landslides”. A 3 November update by Project Hope, an international global health and humanitarian aid NGO, estimates that over 44,000 people have been displaced across the region due to the storm, with 61 deaths across Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic while “the true scale of this disaster is still being uncovered”. The NGO notes that in Jamaica, over 30,000 people are currently displaced, and 60% of the island is without power. Meanwhile in Haiti, where over 14,000 people are displaced, 20 people were killed, and 12 remain missing after the La Digue river burst its banks in Petit-Goâve commune in Ouest department.

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