OBMICA Bulletin Editorial June 2024
Hurricane Beryl was a deadly and destructive Category 5 hurricane that affected parts of the Caribbean, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the U.S. Gulf Coast in late June and early July 2024. It was the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane ever recorded in any Atlantic season and only the second in the month of July.
Beryl was also the strongest hurricane to develop within the Atlantic Main Development Region before the month of July. It was the second named storm, the first hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2024 season. It was an atypical hurricane that, in addition to causing widespread destruction in its path, broke many meteorological records for the months of June and July, including location, intensity, and longevity. It was also the strongest storm recorded in June by wind speed and the strongest in that month since Hurricane Alma in 1966. The effects and casualties of the hurricane were widespread. Beryl caused catastrophic damage on islands north of Grenada and on several islands south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Sustained damage was also recorded in Yucatan. In the United States, the state of Texas suffered severe flooding and wind damage. A total of 28 deaths has been confirmed and preliminary damage estimates exceed 6 billion dollars.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) expressed their solidarity with the countries and populations affected by Hurricane Beryl. The increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and other natural disasters is a direct consequence of climate change, which alters global weather conditions and exacerbates risks and impacts on the lives, health, and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations. The IACHR and REDESCA reiterate that the effects of climate change represent a serious threat to the exercise of several fundamental rights necessary for a dignified life, such as the rights to life, food, adequate housing, health, water, and a healthy environment (Resolution 3/2021); they also warn that the impacts generated are differentiated in terms of the effective enjoyment of these rights. According to AP, thousands of people left Barbados before Beryl reached the island out of fear of the hurricane, including many who had planned to attend the Cricket World Cup final there. These tourists had the luxury of being able to do so, unlike the options available to many inhabitants of the affected islands, who often have to endure forced displacement before they can timidly restart their lives and livelihoods.
Bridget Wooding
Caption: Part of the panel, June 15, at the LASA conference, Bogota
Alongside our associate researcher Masaya Llavaneras Blanco, OBMICA took part in a hybrid panel at the LASA conference in mid-June 2024. The panel explored the crisis in social reproduction that forms part of the broader humanitarian emergency in Venezuela. It examined how the collapse of social reproduction systems and institutions has led to migration, whether forced or not, the depletion of the resources and bodies of individuals and communities, as well as the rise of private, informal, and spiritual strategies. The panel adopted a multidisciplinary approach and a regional perspective, including the situation in Venezuela, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. The presentation by Bridget Wooding, OBMICA's director, weighed the current state of social reproduction for Venezuelan migrants, both in terms of adequate access to health services and the registration of their children born in the Dominican Republic. It examines this situation in light of the new conditionality introduced by the 2010 Constitution regarding jus soli, while also problematizing the difficulties of obtaining documentation from Venezuela and the resulting gaps that hinder regularization of the status of children born in the Dominican Republic.