‘Completely unusual’: Haiti blocks flights used by migrants going to US southern border

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Haiti’s government has banned all charter flights to Nicaragua that migrants fleeing poverty and violence had been increasingly using in their quest to reach the United States, according to a bulletin issued on Monday that The Associated Press obtained.

Haiti’s government did not provide an explanation for the decision in its bulletin, which was first reported by The Miami Herald. Civil aviation authorities in Haiti did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Haitians waiting to board a flight to Nicaragua gather at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the government banned all charter flights to Nicaragua.Credit: AP

The move left a couple of thousand angry and bewildered travellers stranded in a car park facing Haiti’s main international airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince surrounded by their luggage, with some holding babies.

“I have to seek a better life elsewhere because Haiti doesn’t offer my generation anything,” said Jean-Marc Antoine, 29. “It’s either hold a gun and be involved with a gang, be killed, or leave the country.”

His brother in Chile had loaned him $US4000 ($6270) for the plane ticket, and like many of the stranded passengers, he fretted about whether he would get his money back.

Nearby, Marie-Ange Solomon, 58, said she had been calling the charter company repeatedly on Monday to no avail. She had paid $US7000 to leave Haiti with her son.

Haitians waiting to board a flight to Nicaragua gather in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the government banned all charter flights. Credit: AP

“After gathering money to get me and my son out this fragile country, now all of a sudden they stop everything,” she said. “I thought I was going to be freed today.”

Solomon kept an eye on their bags as her 28-year-old son ran to the airport repeatedly in case someone called their names.

More than 260 flights departing Haiti and believed to have carried up to 31,000 migrants have landed in the Central American country of Nicaragua since early August as Haiti’s crisis deepens, with gangs estimated to now control up to 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince.

The number of migrants represents nearly 60 per cent of all US-Mexico border Haitian arrivals, said Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue.

Experts have said that seats on charter flights to Nicaragua can range from $US3000 to $US5000, with Nicaragua a popular destination because it does not require visas for certain migrants.

“The magnitude of the flights are just completely unusual ... and it represents a security risk,” Orozco said in a phone interview.

He questioned whether the suspension of the charter flights was prompted by outside pressure, adding that he did not know if the US government was involved.

Orozco noted that there were no charter flights from Port-au-Prince to Nicaragua last January and that the three daily flights that began in late July had grown to 11 flights a day.

The suspension of charter flights could prompt Haitian migrants to seek other ways to flee their country, he said.

“I think Dominicans will probably at this point organise themselves or cross their fingers that there is not a crossover,” Orozco said.

The blocking of flights from Haiti comes as a large migrant caravan comprising many Central Americans and Venezuelans left southern Mexico for the United States.

Officials in the southern state of Chiapas said some 3500 people had set off on foot from the city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border, while one of the caravan’s organisers, Irineo Mujica, said there were around 5000 in the group.

Migrants start walking north on their way to Mexico City from Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico in April, 2023.Credit: AP

The continued influx comes as Washington grapples with renewed pressure on its southern border.

US President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, is under pressure to curb the number of people crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico.

Most of the latest caravan are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela, according to Mujica.

Escorted by civil protection officials and ambulances, the migrants were walking on a coastal highway around midday, planning to spend the night in the municipality of Huehuetan, about 25 km north of where they started.

Mujica said the migrants opted to leave Tapachula due to frustration about not being able to obtain humanitarian visas. Some migrants even offered to help recovery efforts in the port of Acapulco, which was devastated by a hurricane last week, but did not get a response from the authorities, he added.

Many migrants are fleeing poverty and political instability in their homelands, and this year record numbers have crossed the Darien Gap region connecting Panama and Colombia.

Millions of Venezuelans have left home due to the economic crisis plaguing the once-prosperous oil producing country.

“In Venezuela things are very tough, we can’t live with the money we get, it’s not enough for us, and that’s why we’re going to the United States,” said Oscar Gutierrez, a Venezuelan migrant travelling with his wife and two daughters.

AP, Reuters

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