Mitch Albom, volunteers airlifted from Haiti amid gang violence
FOX 2 (WJBK) - Mitch Albom, a Detroit Free Press columnist, was airlifted out of Haiti on Tuesday along with a group of volunteers from Michigan.
Haiti is once again facing a wave of chaos fueled by ongoing gang wars.
The helicopter extraction took place in the middle of the night, Albom told FOX 2. It was spearheaded by congress members Lisa McClain and Corey Mills.
"It was something that was planned for several days. You have to be very careful, because there are gangs out, and they've been known to shoot at helicopters for fear that they might be carrying Ariel Henry – the prime minister who has now stepped down."
After multiple failed attempts to escape Haiti with other groups, Albom, his wife Janine Sabino, and the eight volunteers they were with are now safe.
"It was very, very fast, very, very hectic, like something out of a movie," Albom said. "But what's important to remember isn't just that we got out, it's that there's so many people there who are still there – Americans, Canadians who are not getting the help that they need, particularly from their governments."
Mitch Albom. (Photo from HaveFaithHaiti.org)
Albom was in Port-au-Prince for his monthly visit to an orphanage that is run by his charity, Have Faith Haiti. He was supposed to leave on Saturday but got stuck there due to the ongoing conflict.
The organization provides nourishment, education, and more for children in need and orphans of Haiti, according to its website.
"What's most important is that our kids and other Haitians like them don't have an option to get out. And we got to feel what that was like, for seven or eight days – when you can't go home and they say 'there is no airport, and there is no boats, and there are no borders, and there's no roads that you can go on, you go where we tell you to go.' And that's a very frightening way to live, and that's how our kids have to live all the time."
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced Tuesday that he will resign once a transitional presidential council is created, bowing to international pressure that seeks to save the country overwhelmed by violent gangs that some experts say have unleashed a low-scale civil war.
"I pray that there's some kind of change, but it can't go on the way it was," Albom said. "I've seen a lot of violence in Haiti, and we were there when the President got assassinated, but this last stretch was as bad as I've ever seen. Police stations literally set on fire and destroyed, office buildings, Interior Ministry buildings, the… building which contains all of our paperwork for all the orphanages in Haiti… it was overrun by people needing shelter. And they destroyed the building trying to find a place to sleep at night. This isn't a way for people to live."
Street battles between anti-government gangs and police have crippled Haiti’s fragile economy, with United Nations officials saying half of the country’s more than 11 million inhabitants don’t have enough to eat and 1.4 million are starving.
"Basic necessities of life are just denied, or they jack up the prices on it because it's like a black market thing," Albom said. "When violence and terror reign, normal life can't go on, and it's not fair to the people who have to live with that all the time."
The AP News contributed to this report.