CANADIANS TRAPPED AS HAITI ERUPTS IN PROTESTS
‘WE’VE LIVED THROUGH A COUP D’ETAT, AN EARTHQUAKE, A HURRICANE — THINGS CAN HAPPEN IN THIS COUNTRY.’
Deadly anti-government protests in Haiti have trapped more than 100 Canadians including tourists at an all-inclusive beachfront hotel and aid workers.
Seven people have died in demonstrations against President Jovenel Moise accusing him of failing to tackle widespread unemployment, skyrocketing inflation as well as the government’s failure to prosecute embezzlement from a multi-billion Venezuelan program that sent discounted oil to Haiti.
Protesters stoned the president’s home several days ago.
Route 1, the only highway linking the hotel to the airport, is considered extremely dangerous because of the protests.
About 100 Quebec tourists are trapped at their hotel, located 75 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince, and the heavily fortified Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince was closed Thursday to ensure the safety of employees as well as Canadian diplomats and their families.
The Quebecers are in Haiti on allinclusive vacation packages organized by Air Transat.
Terry Watson, 58, and her partner Sylvain Limoges, 55, have been at the Royal Decameron resort for 11 days now, four days longer than anticipated.
“Air Transat keeps saying that they’re trying to find a way by car to bring us to the airport, which is impossible,” Watson told Postmedia News. “Everybody here is nervous, having a hard time sleeping. We’re worried the unrest will go on, and we will be stuck here for months.
“We need to go by helicopter but Air Transat refuses.”
Tourists from other locations, including the United States and Europe, were airlifted from the hotel by helicopters organized by their tour companies. Watson tried to rent one, at a cost of $350 per person, but it arrived too late to catch Air Transat’s Wednesday flight. Air Transat told clients attempting to book helicopters the company could not be held liable for their safety.
“It’s going well given the circumstances. They feel safe, “said Watson’s daughter, Marie-Christine Remy, who lives in Sherbrooke.
She noted the resort is surrounded by guards. “But they are eager to get back home.”
A team of 26 aid workers with a missionary group from Quebec are also trapped.
Michel Bougie, vicepresident of an evangelical Christian foundation that been present in Haiti for 20 years, said his team had been scheduled to return home on Wednesday but “they can’t move.”
“All the roads in the country are blocked,” Bougie said in Montreal. “It’s really a well-concerted effort to literally paralyze the country with the goal of destabilizing the government.” Bougie said his team of doctors, nurses and other personnel are safe despite the violence.
“We’ve lived through a coup d’etat, an earthquake, a hurricane — things can happen in this country,” Bougie said. “But they are people we love enormously.”
Ottawa-based physician Emilio Bazile said food was running low for him and his 10-member medical team.
Bazile and three members of his group arrived in southern Haiti on Jan. 30 to provide medical care to locals. They planned to stay for 14 days, but by Feb. 7, he said, protesters had blocked major roads around the country.
“The whole country is paralyzed,” he said Thursday in an interview from Saint-Louis-du-Sud. “You cannot go through because there are barricades throughout the national roads. We have been lacking in food. Because nothing is coming from Port-au-Prince. Nothing. We have been eating spaghetti.”
Bazile said he found out Thursday that a barricade on a route to the capital had been removed.
“It’s very risky, but it looks like Port-au-Prince is slowing down in terms of problems,” he said. “We want to go to the airport and stay there and sleep there.”
Two city of Montreal employees working on projects in Haiti have managed to leave in the last two days.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said, “It’s not an easy decision to make because obviously we want to be able to support the Haitian people, but at the same time we have a duty to protect our employees.”
Eight officers with the Montreal police force on a training mission have opted to stay, saying their security is not at risk. The eight officers in Haiti are there to train security workers, a Montreal police force spokesperson said.
Global Affairs Canada issued an advisory warning Tuesday against all non-essential travel to Haiti “due to civil unrest throughout the country.”