Eamon Courtenay, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belize announced that his country will no longer allow charter flights from Haiti to land in Belize adding that he is also ready if necessary, to cancel the provisions allowing Haitians to come in the country without a visa.

Minister Eamon Courtenay clarified that this decision follows information that "corrupt and abusive mafia... using chartered flights out of Haiti to smuggle Haitians".

He recalls that in recent times, there have been several charter flights carrying Haitian passengers to Belize, but that these planes will no longer be allowed to land at Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport (PGIA) because many of the Haitian passengers were arriving in the country with one-way tickets, do not have a Hotel or a place to stay, and end up smuggling the country out to the United States.

"We have taken a decision this week and I informed Cabinet on June 16, that we have requests over the next six weeks for a number of flights to come as charter (from) Haiti [to] Belize," said the Minister Courtenay. "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" explaining that this decision aims to prevent Haitians from falling into the hands of mafia networks of crooks, smugglers and migrant traffickers, from being mistreated and exploited concluding "[...] we will not allow it to happen through Belize as long as we can stop it."

S/ HaitiLibre