Quebecers stranded by Haitian protests arrive in Montreal

Air Transat said the Quebec and Canadian governments helped co-ordinate the evacuation effort.

“Our customers, as well as their loved ones, have lived a challenging and uncertain week,” spokeswoman Annick Guerard said in a statement.

“Since the rise of tensions in Haiti, our teams have been mobilized and working hard to repatriate our customers safely and as quickly as possible.”

Normand Rosa, one of the guests at the hotel, said Saturday morning that the helicopter evacuations from the hotel were “rolling smoothly.”

Rosa said he was glad Transat had finally given in to pressure to bring the vacationers to the airport, after the company said earlier in the week that logistics and security prevented it from doing so.

He said that while the hotel staff had been accommodating and he’d never felt unsafe, it was time to return home.

“It’s better to evacuate before it deteriorates further,” he said in a phone interview.

Protests demanding the resignation of President Jovenel Moise have claimed several lives over the past week.

Protesters are angry about skyrocketing inflation and the government’s failure to prosecute embezzlement from a multi-billion-dollar Venezuelan program that sent discounted oil to Haiti.

Other Canadians stuck in Haiti have also been making their way to the airport by way of helicopter flights or harrowing road journeys.

An Ottawa doctor and three health professionals from New Brunswick endured a nerve-wracking seven-and-a-half hour trip that ended with the group hiring an ambulance driver to secure safe passage to the airport on Friday.

Reached Saturday from a stopover in Philadelphia, Dr. Emilio Bazile said he felt lucky to have escaped with only a few bruises from flying rocks that also damaged a vehicle.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Quebecers stranded by Haitian protests arrive in Montreal

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