Costa Rica: IOM supports DGME in response to COVID-19

 
Costa Rica
7 April, 2020

Aiming to strengthen the local government’s capacities and in response to official protocols established in response to COVID-19, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Costa Rica delivered this morning a donation to the General Directorate of Migration and Aliens (DGME). Said donation provided technical equipment to face the global pandemic, promoting adequate attention to national and foreign users of the services provided by the DGME.

 

The equipment was handed over at the DGME headquarters in La Uruca. It includes twelve solar lamps, ten emergency lamps, eighteen hand megaphones and two illumination towers to be used in the operation of the North Bicentennial Migration Station, in the community of La Cruz, Guanacaste. IOM had support from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

 

“This important delivery of equipment is part of the response to the containment and mitigation of COVID-19 at the North Bicentennial Migration Station, which hosts a large number of foreigners currently in Costa Rica. Only with an inclusive approach, not leaving anyone behind, will we be able to overcome this global crisis, of a never-before-seen magnitude”, said Roeland de Wilde, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Costa Rica.

 

“We are deeply grateful for IOM and the US Department of State’s support in the delivery of this equipment. It will strengthen the attention to migrants currently in this migration station”, stated Raquel Vargas, DGME’s general director. “We have attempted to enforce all prevention measures indicated by the Ministry of Health, and this kind of support provides us with very necessary supplies needed to care for the health of migrants and workers of the DGME.  

 

IOM helps government institutions tasked with the protection of migrants. This is why it was very relevant to provide DGME with this technical equipment, to reinforce the capacities of the centers opened for migrants currently in the country, preventing the spred of the virus and defending health.