By The Haitian Times
Santiago de Chile, Chile — Chile’s Supreme Court ordered that six Haitians stranded in Santiago de Chile’s main airport be allowed to enter the country, the judicial body said via its twitter feed on Jan. 31.
The Court’s decision established that the Investigations Police of Chile “should allow the entrance of those safeguarded to national territory so they continue the regularization process of their migratory situation, until completion.”
In the last few years, several cases of Haitians being left stranded at the Santiago de Chile airport have been reported. In January, biobiochile.cl and other online Chilean publications reported that a group of about 20 Haitians were stranded for weeks at the international airport, waiting to be allowed into the country. In November 2021, CHV Noticias TV news reported that 13 Haitians were stranded in the same airport.
“We’ve been living here for a month, here the situation is…we can’t live here,” said one of the Haitians in an interview for CHV Noticias.
In another case, reported by 24horas.cl, Henry Joseph, a 40-year old Haitian man returning to Haiti, died at a Chilean hospital after spending two days sick at the airport, without any help from airport authorities. Joseph, according to the report, was made to disembark from his flight for being sick. A woman helped him get to the hospital, where he died.
It is unclear if the six Haitians allowed to enter Chile this week were among the same six reported stuck there last week. The six Haitians allowed to enter were identified as Perceles Buteau, Paul Olriche, Gede Marckenson, Jean Miguel Merilan, Dorlus Claudette and Louis Jean Robert.
