Belize Says No to Haitian Charters

Eamon Courtenay

There have been several requests for chartered flights carrying Haitian visitors to arrive in Belize in the weeks ahead.  All indications are, however, that those aircrafts won’t be allowed to touch down at the P.G.I.A.  That’s because many of those onboard have been arriving on one-way tickets, without hotel arrangements and end up being smuggled out of the country en route to the United States.  It’s a concerning situation, one that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Department are aware of.  A recently published article online, delves into the business of human smuggling using these charters.  Foreign Minister Eamon Courtenay explains Belize’s stance on these arrivals.

Eamon Courtenay, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I can send you an article from Yahoo News! Yesterday that explained the corrupt and abusive mafia that is using chartered flights out of Haiti to smuggle Haitians.  We have taken a decision this week, and I informed Cabinet yesterday that we have requests over the next six weeks for a number of flights to come as charter [from] Haiti [to] Belize.  In collaboration with [the Department of] Civil Aviation, we are not going to allow them to land, and if we have to reverse the provision of Haitians coming into Belize without a visa, we are going to do so.  Why?  Because these people are abused by smugglers, they are trafficked by smugglers and we will not allow it to happen through Belize as long as we can stop it.”