Chopper companies ready to airlift people out of Haiti complain about Dominican red tape

As the crisis in Haiti intensifies, efforts to evacuate hundreds of foreigners wanting to escape the growing violence are being hindered by red tape in the neighboring Dominican Republic, whose officials have so far authorized very few helicopter flights out of its territory that could pick up evacuees, air rescue companies say.

While those claims are disputed by Dominican authorities, several air rescue companies contacted by the Miami Herald said that dozens of helicopters are sitting idle in Santo Domingo waiting for government approval of their flights to rescue people stranded in the Haitian capital. Transport companies contacted by dozens of people wishing to flee have been filing petitions with the Dominican government on a daily basis since the crisis began, but they are going unanswered.

The situation is even worse for Haitian nationals, who are being told that they are not allowed to board flights to the Dominican Republic at all, employees at the air rescue companies said. The neighboring country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, is arguably the only way out of Port-au-Prince since the country’s main international airport and the city’s main roads to the rest of the country remain closed down due to gang violence.

“We haven’t been able to get a permit to allow us to fly into Haiti and then back,” a representative of a helicopter company who asked not to be identified said. “There’s a process to get the approval and we just have not been able to get it done yet; we have not been able to make a single flight”.

Officials at the air transport companies agreed to speak to a reporter on condition of anonymity, saying they don’t want to get in trouble with Dominican authorities.

The U.S. State Department said nearly 1,600 Americans have reached out seeking help to get out of Haiti, given that commercial flights from major U.S. carriers have been halted since March 4, when armed groups targeted the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, along with the nearby seaport.

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized that Haiti has been under a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” warning since 2020 “precisely because of the ongoing instability” caused by the gangs.

The State Department has been able to organize helicopter flights out of Haiti and pledged to evacuate around 30 Americans per day. But independent companies claiming they could boost that number significantly say that they are getting stone-walled by Dominican officials in charge of granting authorization.

“We are willing to go out there and rescue people, to get them out of this horrible situation. I don’t understand why they are making us go through this silly process to turn us down in the end,” another employee whose company is still waiting for approval told the Herald.

Dominican officials said the complaints are overblown.

Dominican Air Force Gen. Mao Gómez Vásquez, who heads the Security Department of the Foreign Ministry, said that around 560 people have already been evacuated by helicopter, but that the Dominican Republic has a protocol to process the flights that must be followed to make sure the people entering into its territory have the proper documentation and can prove their identities.

The screening process is necessary given the recent massive prison breaks that took place in Haiti, Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez added.

“In Haiti there is a very precarious government and that means that the other side... works very slowly,” Alvarez said, adding that is one of the reasons for the delays.

“There have been massive escapes from prisons in Haiti,” he added. “These are prisoners convicted of murder and other serious crimes.... We have to conduct the due diligence in a very careful way, not only for our national security, but also for international responsibility.”

The screening process is paralyzed, another air company officials said. “There is a real bottleneck,” he said. “And it is on the side of the Dominican Republic.”

Calls from stranded people to air rescue companies have become frantic as the violence grows in Port-au-Prince, with reports that heavily armed groups are advancing into new zones of the capital.

“There is human suffering at an alarming scale,” Ulrika Richardson, the deputy special representative of the United Nations secretary general in Haiti, told reporters.

More than 2,500 people have recently been killed, kidnapped or injured, she said, stressing that sexual violence is rampant, along with the use of torture and “collective rape” against women, she said.

Haiti is also “one step away from famine,” Richardson warned, calling for urgent support for a U.N. humanitarian response plan that which requires $674 million but has received little funding.

With more money, she said, “we can do more” to help the people of Haiti. “Time is running out.”