Durrant Pate/Contributor

Rwanda has sent a contingent of military engineers to Jamaica, joining fellow-African state Ghana in supporting the island’s recovery by rehabilitating infrastructure destroyed by the powerful Category 5 cyclone Hurricane Melissa in October 2025.

The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) said Wednesday that “the deployment is conducted in accordance with a bilateral agreement between Rwanda and Jamaica aimed at assisting in the rehabilitation of critical infrastructure destroyed by disasters”.

Hurricane Melissa hit the Caribbean region in late October 2025, leaving a trail of destruction with Jamaica experiencing the most devastating effect on Tuesday, October 28, resulting in deaths, damage an destruction of infrastructure, prompting a large-scale multi-agency humanitarian response. Last month, Ghana deployed 54 military engineers to Jamaica to help rebuild critical infrastructure after the hurricane caused an estimated damage of US$8.8 billion.

New Brunswick line crew still hard at work in Jamaica

In the meantime, line crews from New Brunswick, Canada, including Holland Power Services, based in Hanwell, are still hard at work in Jamaica, two months after Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica. Some 124 Holland workers are still at work in Jamaica, representing about a tenth of the company’s workforce. John Medved of Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, who has helped restore power after natural disasters to remote communities throughout the world, reports that he has never faced anything as challenging as the destruction he found in Jamaica when he led a team of volunteer co-op lineworkers to the island after Hurricane Melissa. 

“Just flying into Jamaica, you could look down and see that there was no vegetation left on any of the trees, roofs were blown off houses, and debris was everywhere,” explains Medved, director of safety and security at the Fredericksburg, a Virginia-based electricity cooperative. Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) had reached out for help from NRECA International, a pioneer and leader in global rural electrification for more than a half-century, and Medved and 10 other lineworkers from five electric cooperatives throughout the U.S. flying to Jamaica from December 1-19 to help restore power to the Discovery Bay area in St. Ann on the island’s north coast.

In addition to Rappahannock, volunteers came from Choptank Electric Cooperative in Denton, Maryland; First Electric Cooperative in Jacksonville, Arkansas; Northeast Missouri Electric Power Cooperative in Palmyra, Missouri; and Steele-Waseca Co-op Electric in Owatonna, Minnesota. Another team, with lineworkers from Missouri, is working to restore power to more homes, schools and small businesses in Jamaica this month.