Just under 60 orphans from Haiti will arrive in Jamaica this morning in what has been described as “a very delicate operation” planned and executed by the Jamaican Government and Mustard Seed Communities with considerable assistance from a former United States ambassador to Jamaica.

The 59 children, most of whom are under 18 years of age, are being accompanied by 13 members of staff from the orphanage located in an area north of Haiti’s capital city Port-au-Prince.

“The staff are necessary to help care for the children, all of whom are afflicted with disabilities. Plus, they are vital for communicating with the children, given the language barrier,” a source close to the operation told the
Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

According to the source, the area where the orphanage is located is totally surrounded and controlled by gangs, which have subjected Haitians to bloodshed and mayhem since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Two weeks ago National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang told Parliament’s Standing Finance Committee that Jamaica had committed to accepting a number of orphans from Haiti in need of protection.

Chang’s announcement triggered a caution from Haitian politician Himler Francois that, while he understood the reason for the Administration’s decision, Jamaica could face several problems if it decided to take in the orphans.

“While Jamaica opens its borders to the orphans, Jamaica has to make sure that the country has a system in place to prevent child trafficking,” Francois, who is based in the United States, told the Jamaica Observer on the margins of a high-level Caricom meeting on Haiti attended by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kingston on March 11.

However, Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith told journalists at last week’s post-Cabinet press briefing that there will be no wholesale movement of orphans from Haiti to Jamaica.

“I saw a report that seemed to be of the impression that Jamaica was opening our borders to all Haitian orphans or all persons claiming to be Haitian orphans…and that is not at all the case,” Johnson Smith said.

“There is an orphanage that is run by a private charity in Haiti that cares for just under 50 of the most disabled children who have been abandoned by their families…and a local charity, the Mustard Seed Communities, has been working with them for the past, I would say, year,” she added.

On Wednesday, the Observer source said Mustard Seed has been receiving assistance from former US Ambassador to Jamaica Luis Moreno, who has considerable foreign service experience in Haiti.

Moreno served as the US Embassy’s deputy chief of mission in Port-au-Prince from 2001 to 2004. Before that he was assigned to Port-au-Prince as refugee coordinator in 1993.

The US State Department website also states that while Moreno was in Haiti he repatriated tens of thousands of Haitians as well as directed three political asylum in-country processing centres.

“After the United Nations intervention in 1994, Ambassador Moreno became the embassy’s first political military officer. He was also the US Government’s primary advisor to the International Police Monitors,” the State Department states.

“Ambassador Moreno has been a great help to us and so too Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, who has been exceptional,” the Observer source said on Monday.

The source said that Mustard Seed has made arrangements to house the children at its Jacob’s Ladder property, the largest operated by the charity, which, for decades, has been caring for children with disability, children with HIV, as well as teen mothers and their babies.

For the past three weeks Haiti has been engulfed in a gang uprising by well-armed groups who have demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

Following the March 11 emergency talks in Jamaica, Henry agreed to step down following the formation of a transitional council which will include seven voting and two observer members representing a broad spectrum in Haiti and its diaspora. The council will be in charge of naming an interim Government before elections, which have not been held since 2016.

On Wednesday it was reported that negotiations to form the transitional council to govern Haiti were far advanced.

“Discussions continue. I’m sure it will take a little bit of time, but from all indications, it’s moving along,” Guyana’s ambassador to the United Nations, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said.