THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9407300347
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Short : 26 lines
Forty-eight Navy medical personnel who have spent the past seven weeks aboard the hospital ship Comfort in the Caribbean, where they helped process Haitian refugees, flew home Friday.
The group was made up of 13 officers, including doctors, nurses and medical service personnel, as well as 22 enlisted hospital corpsmen and 13 enlisted support personnel.
The Comfort, based in Baltimore, left Norfolk for the Caribbean June 6 for Kingston, Jamaica, where it served as the primary processing center for Haitian immigrants. The 1,000-bed facility operated at close to capacity as Navy and Coast Guard ships intercepted thousands of Haitians at sea.
Now that the exodus has slowed considerably, the Comfort has been ordered to return to Baltimore. Haitian refugees are being processed at the naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. by CNB