Military to send USNS Comfort to Colombia amid refugee crisis

[nitpicker]

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/military-to-send-usns-comfort-to-colombia-amid-refugee-crisis-1.543210

Military to send USNS Comfort to Colombia amid refugee crisis

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 17, 2018


WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to dispatch a hospital ship to Colombia and possibly other parts of South America to help relieve strain on health care systems overloaded by an influx of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled that crisis-racked nation, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. "It is absolutely a humanitarian mission," he told reporters returning with him to Washington after a six-day tour of South America.

Mattis would not say when the USNS Comfort would arrive off the coast of Colombia, but it apparently will not be in the next few weeks. Dana W. White, the chief Pentagon spokeswoman, said it would be "in the fall," but she would not be more specific.
(snip)

Some details of the plan for dispatching the Comfort from Norfolk, Virginia, have not yet been worked out, Mattis said. The ship may visit other South American countries also feeling effects of the refugee problem. "We are going to go where the need is greatest," he said, but that will not include Venezuela.
(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. More from the DoD transcript of Mattis talking to reporters

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1606141/media-availability-by-secretary-mattis-en-route-andrews-afb/

(snip)
Another example of how they have come of age, our neighbors will be shoulder to shoulder. Colombia is hosting UNITAS this September. Those who are not aware of it. It's the longest running annual multinational maritime exercise, and it is one where the hemisphere's navies work together, and that is now going to be hosted by UNITAS in September, next month.

Of course we do have the robust counter-narcotics missions. That's one where we're working together to strengthen the effort, and we -- and to support President Duque's re-energized campaign, and to deepen further already strong military-to-military relationships.
(snip)

SEC. MATTIS: Refugees are refugees. I don't know if you've ever been around them. I've been around them in Europe. I've been around them in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Mideast. It is difficult for those of us who live knowing we can flip a switch and turn on the lights at home, we can reach into the refrigerator and have chilled milk when we get up in the morning, to understand they have nothing, and they have poured over the borders. We know that the Colombia health care system, you can't add a million people in the one part of the country, even as they start to filter through, and not upset the apple cart; it's impossible.

So we're going in, defining the problem that we're -- I think we're doing -- where best could the ship be employed, and that's what we're doing. I mean, this is a very clear -- a very clear problem, and with a very specific to try to help our neighbors, who are doing their best, I think, to help these refugees.
(snip)