20151: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-U.S. preps to face Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Mar. 09, 2004


Airline resumes flights from Miami to Haiti

BY DAPHNE DURET

dduret@herald.com


As American Airlines prepared to resume flights between Miami and Haiti
Tuesday, dozens of people loaded heavy suitcases, bags and boxes onto scales
at the ticket counter, hoping to board the earliest flight of the day, a
7:30 a.m. jet to Port-au-Prince.

American Airlines suspended flights to Haiti Feb. 26, as rebels took power
in outlying cities and threatened to move into Port-au-Prince,

Some passengers, like friends Marie Carmel and Rosette Joseph, live in Haiti
and were in Miami on vacation when violence in their country forced them
into an extended stay.

''I'm not afraid to go back home, it just saddens my spirit to see the
destruction and the fighting that's been done,'' Joseph, 36, said.

Others waiting for the flight, like opthamologist Serge Prosper, live in
Miami but travel to Haiti often.

Prosper waited for a Port-au-Prince flight on standby, anxious to get back
to the patients at his clinic in Haiti who have not seen him for more than a
month.

''Most of them, when they don't see me they won't refill their
prescriptions,'' Prosper said. ``I want to go back and see them before some
of them get worse or become blind.''

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