For these Haitians, journey to the U.S. began with bus ride through violence, gang turf

When Roselore Touze heard that there was a commercial flight out of Haiti — the first in three weeks since deadly gang violence broke out in the capital of Port-au-Prince and targeted the country’s main airport — she had a decision to make.

Her sister, Jeanine, had already spent a month stuck in Haiti after being approved to come to the United States under a two-year humanitarian parole program, but time was quickly running out. With only two months left to make it out, and the capital under attack, the Touze sisters decided to take a risk.

On Monday, Jeanine arrived in Miami, one of 155 people who flew on the first of two Sunrise Airways flights out of Haiti’s Hugo Chavez International Airport in Cap-Haïtien, several hours north of Port-au-Prince.

To make the flight, however, Jeanine, 30, who had not seen her sister in 15 years, had to board several public buses and travel through the violence, not just in Port-au-Prince but in gang-controlled communities outside the capital. She finally arrived in Cap-Haïtien on Sunday, three days after she left home in L’Asile in the Nippes region in the south.

“It wasn’t a route that she was accustomed to making,” Roselore Touze said, waiting in the arrival lounge at Miami International Airport for her sister, grateful that Jeanine made it out alive.

For some people who have been trapped in Haiti, getting out has been a mere helicopter ride. But for others the journey to safety has been much more harrowing. On Monday, two full planeloads arrived in Miami with passengers who hours before had no other choice but to get on a bus and pray.

“It was a difficult journey to travel with all the stress,” said Carline Allen, who said she and her husband had an important meeting in the U.S. that left them with no other choice but to travel by road through Haiti. “It’s a very big risk if you go by public buses, but there is no other way.”

Originally from Petit-Goave, Allen and her husband are the owner of a hotel in the rural town two hours south of Port-au-Prince. They’ve been stranded in the capital since December, when gang-violence blocked their return home. Now she doesn’t know when she will be able to return to Haiti, much less Petit-Goave.

Initially, things had been calm in her Pétion-Ville neighborhood, Allen said, with family coming to seek refuge from the heavy gunfire. Then last week, the bandits invaded the wealthy enclave of the capital.

“Wherever you are, you’re not safe,” she said.

Allen who is retired from a United Nations post and worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo specializing in children and armed conflict, said this is the first time Haitians are living a situation this bad. They need “urgent help,” she said. A multinational force led by Kenya is supposed to go to Haiti at some point to help police battle gangs, but there has been no movement so far.

“We have seen violence in the past, but it’s the first time we got to that point and we feel like the international community is making fun of us,” Allen said. “One week they say the force is coming, the next week it’s not coming anymore. We think that American authorities could solve that problem in a couple of days. That is the feeling we have; we are left aside and we are left behind.”

Allen said Haitians at home don’t know when or where the gangs will strike next.

“Something should be done and we don’t see other solutions” she said.

Roldege Arius, a youth soccer coach who formerly played pro, said it felt “really good to be here,” after having left Port-au-Prince by bus to catch the flight.

“I hope the government will be able to do something quickly,” said Arius, who lives in Canada. “We really want to have a better situation for the young kids, and give them a chance to dream, because a lot of kids want to go back to school and they can’t go to school.... It’s tough.”

While he would have liked to stay in Haiti, Arius said, the situation didn’t allow it, especially since there were gang attacks near the hotel where he was staying.

“I was kind of scared for the people outside,” he said. “I see the people in Haiti, they’re strong, they are really trying to live with this situation. I’m really proud of my people.”

On Monday, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government has facilitated the departure of over 340 U.S. citizens out of Haiti since March 17, including about 250 U.S. citizens who departed Port-au-Prince and 100 who departed through Cap-Haïtien.

There were three helicopter flights on Monday and four planned for Tuesday.

“We continue to explore other alternatives to evacuate American citizens from Haiti,” Miller said.

For now, the only way out for non-U.S. citizens is Haitian-owned Sunrise Airways, which will also operate flights on Wednesday and Friday this week.

Samuel Paulemon, who spent hours waiting for family in the international arrival lounge at MIA, said he doesn’t understand what is happening in his homeland. But he’s glad, he said, that his wife, mother and 17-year-old daughter will no longer need to deal with it. They are starting life anew in the U.S. after also arriving as part of the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program, which has brought 151,000 Haitian nationals to the U.S. since the program’s launch in January 2023.

Paulemon said he was left Haiti after armed gangs forced him to abandoned his business in the capital and seek refuge in the Dominican Republic. In November, he came to the U.S.