Two women in­volved in the day-to-day op­er­a­tions in Haiti of the UN’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an air ser­vice, known as  UN­HAS, say they have to man­age “un­knowns” and “dan­gers and stress” in or­der to keep air­craft fly­ing.

Haiti’s cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, is gripped by in­se­cu­ri­ty due to gang vi­o­lence and now UN­HAS, which is man­aged by the UN’s World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) is the on­ly op­tion for hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers to trav­el safe­ly in and out of the city and for crit­i­cal equip­ment and re­lief aid to be trans­port­ed and dis­trib­uted with­in the coun­try.

The num­ber of peo­ple killed and in­jured in Haiti due to gang vi­o­lence sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased in 2023 – 4,451 killed and 1,668 in­jured. The num­ber of vic­tims sky­rock­et­ed in the first three months of this year, es­ti­mat­ed at 1,554 killed and 826 in­jured.

Gangs con­tin­ue to use sex­u­al vi­o­lence to bru­talise, pun­ish and con­trol peo­ple and women have been raped dur­ing gang at­tacks on neigh­bour­hoods, in many cas­es af­ter see­ing their hus­bands killed in front of them. Some women are forced in­to ex­ploita­tive sex­u­al re­la­tions with gang mem­bers.

Haiti has start­ed the search for a new prime min­is­ter in keep­ing with the agree­ment reached on April 3 this year al­low­ing for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion­al Coun­cil (CPT) that is tasked with end­ing the po­lit­i­cal and so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try.

The CPT has al­ready named Edgar Leblanc Fils, 68, a vet­er­an politi­cian and for­mer pres­i­dent of Haiti’s na­tion­al as­sem­bly, as pro­vi­sion­al pres­i­dent.

Robine JN­Bap­tise, who works for UN­HAS,  and is em­ployed by Con­struc­tion He­li­copters, the avi­a­tion com­pa­ny op­er­at­ing the air­craft, said “We have two air­craft here in Haiti – a he­li­copter that holds about 19 peo­ple or can car­ry two tonnes of car­go and a fixed-wing jet 45 that car­ries nine peo­ple.

“I am an avi­a­tion and book­ing as­sis­tant, so am re­spon­si­ble for get­ting peo­ple on and off the air­craft. I al­so as­sist with ad­min­is­tra­tion and se­cur­ing op­er­at­ing per­mits.

For her part, Chris­tine Blais serves as a flight me­chan­ic and crew chief fly­ing mis­sions around Haiti.

“On any giv­en day, we would fly be­tween two to six hours. Our air­craft are now based in Cap Hai­tien, but we have flown out of Turks and Caicos as well as the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic”.

JN­Bap­tise said it is a stress­ful job, but luck­i­ly she per­forms very well un­der pres­sure.

“On some days, we help up to 100 peo­ple, main­ly [non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion] NGO work­ers, but al­so UN staff. We are mov­ing peo­ple to a safer part of the coun­try, but al­so bring­ing es­sen­tial staff back to Port-au-Prince. We have re­lo­cat­ed some 200 peo­ple to des­ti­na­tions out­side Haiti, so at the end of the day, it’s a re­ward­ing job.”

Blais said when they land in Port-au-Prince, they keep the time on the ground to a min­i­mum in or­der to mit­i­gate the risks.

“We can land, load and take off with­in two to five min­utes, which is very fast. We have a very good ground crew who keep us safe. In a high-con­flict zone, we have to re­main flex­i­ble at all times whilst re­spond­ing to the needs of the UN.”

JN­Bap­tise says one of the big chal­lenges they face is over­fly­ing Port-au-Prince, where gangs are fight­ing each oth­er or with the po­lice.

“There is al­ways the dan­ger that one of our air­craft gets hit by a stray bul­let, al­though I don’t think that our air­craft are be­ing in­ten­tion­al­ly tar­get­ed,” she said, while Blais notes that col­leagues of hers were at the in­ter­na­tion­al air­port when there was a se­cu­ri­ty breach.

“It was def­i­nite­ly a dan­ger­ous and scary mo­ment for them as shots were be­ing fired as they were work­ing on an air­craft. A com­mer­cial plane, which was on the ground at the time, was hit.”

JN­Bap­tise said the in­ter­na­tion­al air­port closed for some weeks, so they have es­tab­lished a land­ing zone else­where.

“One big con­cern is that gangs could move in­to this area and take over the land­ing zone which would stop our op­er­a­tions. This can be a scary job, but we are now used to the dan­gers and stress, al­though we make sure not to take risks. I have to keep in mind that any­thing can hap­pen to me or the air­craft”

Blais said in high-con­flict zones, there are al­ways un­knowns, and they have to be aware of the threats at all times.

“I re­ly a lot on our team and un­der­stand that if some­thing were to hap­pen, you just have to deal with it as it comes.”

JN­Bap­tise says the ser­vices they are pro­vid­ing are re­al­ly life­sav­ing, “so if our land­ing zones were shut down, it would be dis­as­trous.

“At UN­HAS, we al­ways need to re­mind peo­ple that we are a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vice and that we take no sides. Our role is to trans­port hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers and re­lief aid in or­der to help peo­ple in cri­sis.

“I have nev­er thought of leav­ing the coun­try. If I leave, then who is there to stay? As a Hait­ian and a hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­er, I want to be here and help to get the coun­try back to where it once was.

“At some point, the sit­u­a­tion is go­ing to im­prove be­cause when we reach rock bot­tom, there’s nowhere else to go ex­cept up. This is my home, and I want to be part of a brighter fu­ture for Haiti,” JN­Bap­tise added.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, May 14, CMC 

CMC/un/ir/2024.