US hospital ship to assist 11 countries in response to Venezuelan crisis
A United States Navy hospital ship will provide medical assistance to 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the US Southern Command announced Thursday.
Medical staff on the USNS Comfort will provide services in Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
"This deployment responds directly to the man-made crisis Maduro’s regime has created," Adm. Craig Faller, head of the US Southern Command, said in a statement.
Although the mission was announced on May 7, the US Southern Command had not specified in which countries the five-month mission will take place and there is no exact date for the departure of the Comfort, which is based in Norfolk, Virginia, although it will be in mid-June.