The U.S. State Department says it is exploring options to evacuate U.S. citizens trapped in Haiti, where a power vacuum has let violent gangs take control of most of the capital and forced more than 15,000 people to flee their home.
Ten American nationals arrived in Florida on Tuesday aboard a private plane chartered by missionaries leaving Haiti.
As CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez found, in the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haitien, many others still hope to escape — and worry about those they might have to leave behind.
Long history of crises in Haiti
“We continue to explore the options we have available to us with respect to U.S. citizens interested in leaving Haiti,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Tuesday. He said nearly 1,000 people had filled out a crisis response form through the department’s website, seeking help or a way to escape Haiti.
He said the State Department would remain “in contact with these American citizens.”
Asked whether the U.S. government supported private evacuation flights that were organized, in some cases with the help of members of the U.S. Congress, Patel said such missions “deviate from formal operations of the Department of State” could be high risk. But he stressed that the government welcomes any American citizen seeking safety.
Gregoire Leconte, who has a U.S. passport, was one of hundreds of people in Cap-Haïtien trying to flee the country on Tuesday, without a flight to leave.
“The situation is very bad in Haiti,” he told CBS News.
No sign yet that Haiti crisis is leading to a surge in migrants seeking to reach the United States, officials said
One woman, who asked not to be identified, expressed fear for the friends and family she may soon leave behind, but she made clear the risks were too high.
“People come into your house, kill, rape, all these things, burn your house down,” she said.
While many waited for an opportunity to leave, a mission flight from Fort Pierce, Florida, landed in Cap-Haitien carrying approximately 5,300 pounds of critical humanitarian supplies, including food and formula.
CBS Miami’s Tania Francois was the only reporter on board that flight. Airport workers told him it was the first plane to fly to Haiti from the United States carrying passengers and desperately needed supplies.
The plane then flew south from Cap-Haitien to the town of Pignon, about halfway between the northern port city and the chaos of Port-au-Prince. He then took 14 people back to Florida; 10 American passport holders and four Haitian nationals.
“This is not what I want, because Haiti is my country,” Christla Pierre, a Haitian passenger, told Francois. She said she was traveling to the United States because it was the only way her 15-month-old son, who is a U.S. citizen, could see a pediatrician.
Another Haitian on the plane, Annex Souffance, said he was returning to the United States on a student visa after visiting family in the Caribbean nation.
“I am grateful for the opportunity I have to study in the United States, but my goal is to come back and serve my country,” he said.
