MIAMI (AP) — A charter flight carrying dozens of U.S. citizens fleeing spiraling gang violence in Haiti landed Sunday in Miami, U.S. State Department officials said.
More than 30 U.S. citizens were on the government-chartered flight, officials said in a statement. It arrived in the Miami International Airport after the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince earlier this month urged U.S. citizens to leave “as soon as possible” as chaos grips Haiti.
Passenger Avlot Quessa, who lives in Boston, traveled from the center of the country to board the charter flight after going to Haiti last month for was supposed to be a weeklong trip to visit his mother.
“It’s just terrible … The suffering, you can only imagine,” Quessa told the Miami Herald of the nearby Caribbean nation. “Haiti is my homeland and it’s very stressful to see the homeland going through this act of violence, destruction … and they are our neighbors.”