Sawt Falasteen - Jamaicans mobilize aid in aftermath of Melissa's wreckage

The death toll from the storm is up to 32 people in Jamaica, Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon told a press briefing Monday, though the number was expected to rise. The overall death toll throughout the Caribbean exceeds 60 victims.

"We need every help we can get. So we need food, water, toiletries," said Tackeisha Frazer, a resident of Westmoreland, one of the areas hit hardest by Melissa last week.

"We have a lot of persons who are displaced and not able to either sleep or have anything," she told AFP while waiting in line at a makeshift aid distribution center for essential goods.

Lines of volunteers unloaded trucks filled with packs of water bottles, boxes of food and rolls of toilet paper to distribute at the center.

One of the volunteers, Millicent McCurdy, addressed the international community for aid: "Anyone overseas who can help these people, because these people are homeless, they don't have clothing, they don't have food, they don't have water, they need help."

Diana Mullings, a shopkeeper in Westmoreland, lamented the "very terrible, terrible, terrible sight."

"Every board structures are gone, everything, everything, everything, even the concrete shops," she said.

Jamaican Labor Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. said Monday that about 25 communities in the country remained cut off from aid, though some are beginning to receive supplies via helicopter drops.

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST