Haiti - France : Agreement of adoption, but lack of planes...
The collective SOS Haiti welcomes the agreement concluded on December 11, at the initiative of Michele Alliot-Marie, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador of France in Port au Prince, Didier Le Bret, with Haitian State.
The agreement provides that "children will leave Port-au-Prince, without that the adoptive parents have the obligation to pick them up. The childrens will have a consular pass issued by the embassy of France". In other words, the requirement to have a passport and a visa in good and due form, was lifted. Jean Max Bellerive, Haiti Prime Minister also confirmed that instructions had been given to all departments concerned, to facilitate the implementation of the agreement.
However, Emma Guerry, spokesman for SOS Haiti, laments that only 50 children will enter in France before the end of the year and that all have not yet obtained their consular pass. "175 children can go through consular pass, but how will they leave the island while commercial flights will not, by the end of the year, leaving more than 50 children ?" Also, she worries about the fate of 110 other children who have not yet received a consular pass and have to wait in difficult conditions "between cholera and riots".
"Three planes chartered by France would be sufficient to evacuate the children, before the end of the year", says Ms. Guerry. Asked about the demand of the collective SOS Haiti to have charter planes, the Quai d'Orsay has not decided, but it strongly discourages adoptive families, to travel to Port-au-Prince, due to the situation of insecurity. It recalls that the airlines have been forced to suspend their commercial flights for several days (following to the unrest and violence that occurred after the publication of results of the first round of presidential elections in Haiti).
