SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Dozens of foreigners, including many from the United States and Canada, are stranded in Haitidesperately trying to leave the violence-torn country where anti-government gangs fight the police and they have already closed both international airports in the country.
They were in Haiti for reasons ranging from adoption to missionary and humanitarian work. Now they are locked in hotels and homes, unable to leave by air, sea or land as Haiti remains paralyzed by chaos and gangs. demands that Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign.
“We’re seriously trapped,” said Richard Phillips, 65, of the Canadian capital, Ottawa, who has traveled to Haiti more than three dozen times to work on projects for the United Nations, USAID and now a Haitian nonprofit called Papyrus.
After arriving in Haiti in late February, Phillips flew to the southern coastal town of Les Ques to teach farmers and others how to operate and repair tractors, cultivators, planters and other machinery in an area known for its corn, rice, peas and beans.
After his work was done, Phillips flew to the capital, Port-au-Prince, only to find that his flight had been cancelled. He stayed at a nearby hotel, but the shooting was relentless, so he moved to a safer area.
“We’re actually quite concerned about where this is going,” he told The Associated Press by phone. “If the police collapse, there will be anarchy in the streets and we could be here for a month or more.”
Dozens of people have been killed in the bandit attacks which began on February 29 and more than 15,000 people have been left homeless by the violence.
Earlier this week, the Haitian government extended the state of emergency and evening hours to try to quell the violence, but the attacks continued.
Gangs burned police stations, freed more than 4,000 inmates from Haiti’s two largest prisons, and attacked the main airport of Port-au-Prince, which remains closed. As a result, the prime minister failed to return home after traveling to Kenya to push for a UN-backed deployment of police forces to the East African country.
Phillips said he had exhausted all options to leave Haiti by air, noting that a helicopter operator could not insure himself for such a flight, and a private jet pilot said that approach would be too risky. As for trying to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic: “It’s possible to walk miles and miles to get to the border, but I’m sure that’s dangerous too.”
Despite being stranded, Phillips said he remains calm.
“I was shot many times in Haiti and I have bullet holes in my truck,” he said. “Personally, I’m used to it. But I’m sure for other people it’s quite traumatic for them.
Yvonne Trimble, who has lived in Haiti for more than 40 years, is among the U.S. expats who can’t leave.
She and her husband are in the northern coastal city of Cap-Haitien, waiting for a private missionary evacuation flight that has already been canceled once.
“We’re completely closed,” she said by phone. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen. It is total anarchy.”
Trimble noted how a mob recently surrounded the airport in Cap-Haitien and began throwing rocks and bottles after word that the prime minister would be landing.
She and her husband are scheduled to take off next week courtesy of Florida-based Missionary Flights International.
The company’s vice president of administration, Roger Sands, said Missionary Flights International has received up to 40 calls from people hoping to leave or stay on standby.
“We get phone calls all the time,” he said. “The big concern is that every time people see a plane, they think the prime minister is coming back to the country, and there’s a large section of society that doesn’t want that to happen. So we don’t want to be the first.”
It is unclear when Haiti’s two international airports will reopen.
“It’s tough for us,” Sands said. “We hate to see our planes on the ground when there’s a need.”
A missionary couple, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety, said they have lived in Haiti for several years but will not leave because they are in the process of adopting a 6-year-old boy.
“There is no choice to be made. We are like a family here,” the woman said.
Meanwhile, her husband had to fly to the US last week for medical care because he has type 1 diabetes and has developed neuropathy, which causes severe pain in his legs and back and muscle loss in his legs, making it difficult to move.
So far, the four appointments he made have been put on hold.
“It’s a little disappointing,” he said.
Also unable to leave is Matt Pritchard, 35, of Lebanon, Ohio, and his family. Pritchard, a missionary’s chief operating officer, has two children — a baby and a toddler — with his Haitian wife, as well as an 18-year-old son.
The rest of his family still hasn’t been able to get papers to enter the US, so they will all stay in southern Haiti for now.
“Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck,” he said.
Pritchard noted that his son was stressed by the situation, telling him that he needed to leave because “this is not a good place for you. Just get out of here.
But Pritchard said: “As a father, you can’t abandon your children or your family.”
He said the local grocery store is almost out of essentials and fuel is hard to come by.
“The expat community here is really our comfort,” he said. “It’s that connection, those relationships that really get us through.”
