UN blast US 🇺🇸 response in Puerto Rico

Some 3.4 million Americans are facing "alarming" conditions more than a month after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, UN human experts said, calling the disaster response there ineffective compared with the urgency of federal aid to storm-ravaged states on the US mainland.

"We can't fail to note the dissimilar urgency and priority given to the emergency response in Puerto Rico, compared to the US states affected by hurricanes in recent months," said Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur on housing.

The criticism of the US response comes amid a preliminary FBI inquiry into a $300 million contract between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and Whitefish Energy Holdings, according to a source with knowledge of the inquiry.

Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, a UN expert on foreign debt and human rights, said access to health, food, education, housing, water and social security on the island had been "massively undermined" by the economic and financial crisis that predated the disaster.

With about 90,000 homes destroyed and the island's most valuable exports -- banana and coffee -- hit hard, residents were "at their most vulnerable" and facing immediate food shortages, the experts said.

UCJ, UNILORIN.