State department organizes evacuation after nearly 1,600 US citizens ask for help amid reports of continuing violence in capital
The United States has said it was starting to evacuate its citizens out of Haiti by helicopter, amid reports of fresh fighting in the Caribbean country’s gang-dominated capital, with particularly fierce gunfire in some of the city’s wealthiest enclaves.
A state department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, told reporters on Wednesday that government-chartered aircraft were in the process of beginning to ferry evacuees from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
