Canada has reduced the number of diplomats in its embassy in Haiti by more than half, citing the increasingly unstable security situation in that country.

“The security situation remains fragile,” Sébastien Beaulieu, head of security at Global Affairs Canada, told reporters on Thursday.

He said most Canadian staff at the embassy in Port-au-Prince were flown by helicopter early Thursday to the neighboring Dominican Republic, where they would work remotely.

The helicopter also brought security experts already assigned to the embassy in Haiti but who were abroad and unable to return to Canada when gangs took over the main airport in recent weeks.

This decision to limit Canada's diplomatic presence to “essential staff” only comes a week after other countries made the same decision. Since then, Canada had already blocked access to the embassy and required its staff to work remotely.

Mr. Beaulieu would not specify whether Canada had copied the American decision to deploy soldiers to protect its embassy, ​​but said Canada had reduced its diplomatic footprint to better protect personnel remaining in Port au-Prince.

“The withdrawal is also part of that logic, as it allows us to concentrate our security, our assets and our life support system to support this core team that remains in place,” he said. We are satisfied with the measures taken to protect our core team and ensure their safety. »

Canada has been advising all Canadians in Haiti to leave the country since October 2022, but Mr. Beaulieu said there are still “nearly 3,000” Canadians officially registered there.

Embassy staff are sending messages to these people asking them to seek shelter, respect the curfew and stock up on water, food and medicine as Haiti has lost the essence of its ability to import goods.

Mr. Beaulieu declined to say how many diplomats had left and how many remained, citing security concerns. However, he added that the rest of the staff represented between 10 and 50 percent of the embassy's usual staff.

According to Global Affairs Canada data previously presented to Parliament, the Port-au-Prince Embassy employed 15 Canadian diplomats and 37 local staff as of July 2022.

After Henry

Two days ago, Haitian Prime Minister-designate Ariel Henry agreed to resign once an “interim presidential council” is formed to oversee a Kenya-led international military intervention.

Canada has pledged $80.5 million to the mission and offered to help train Haitian police, but will not send troops there. Kenya said it had suspended deployment of the mission until the Transitional Council in Haiti takes power.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed the mission with his Kenyan counterpart on Wednesday and suggested during a news conference on Thursday that Kenya was unsure whether to lead the mission.

“We hope they will lead a multinational security response force to help stabilize Haiti,” Trudeau told reporters in Windsor, Ontario. “The human and security catastrophe that Haiti is currently experiencing is extremely difficult. »

Sylvie Bédard, acting deputy minister for the Americas, said after Trudeau's comments that Canada has no doubt that Kenya will fulfill its commitment. “We remain confident that this mission can be accomplished,” she said.

Haiti has been mired in a deep security crisis since mid-2021 when gangs took control of key infrastructure. Violent clan warfare led to the collapse of most of the country's health and food systems.

Last December, the head of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, Vice Admiral Bob Auchterlonie, told The Canadian Press in a year-end interview that the government prepared an evacuation plan for Haiti last year but never used it.

Global Affairs' Sébastien Beaulieu says emergency plans are being updated “continuously” and that he would not speculate on what might prompt Canada to begin evacuations.

“There are currently no supported exit or repatriation flights planned for Canadians. None of our partners operate such flights,” he said.

Canadians were evacuated from Israel after the Hamas attacks on October 7, and others were evacuated from Sudan last spring as fighting raged there.

To watch in the video