The Taiwanese embassy in Haiti has no immediate plan to evacuate Taiwanese from the Caribbean ally, but it has contingencies prepared in case evacuation becomes necessary amid escalating violence in the country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry released the statement in response to media inquiries whether Taiwan plans to evacuate diplomatic staff and citizens in Haiti after the US, Germany and the EU decided to do so after the latest incidents last week.
Violence broke out late last month while Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was visiting Kenya to advocate for the deployment of a UN-backed police force to combat Haitian gangs.
Photo: AFP
Since then, criminal gangs have taken control of much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and attacked key infrastructure, including two prisons where most of its 3,800 inmates escaped.
The Taiwanese embassy in Haiti remains open, and 24 Taiwanese in Haiti — comprising embassy staff, technical mission members, businesspeople and their families — are safe, the ministry said.
Given the ongoing chaos in Haiti, it would be safer for Taiwanese to stay where they are for now instead of fleeing to other places, it said.
Other than the US airlifting nonessential embassy personnel from Haiti and the evacuation of the German ambassador and EU diplomatic staff, other countries with embassies in Haiti currently do not have immediate evacuation plans, it said.
The Taiwanese embassy in Haiti has since 2021 beefed up security, hiring more private guards and installing more advanced security systems to protect diplomatic staff, it added.
Contingencies are ready in case a decision is made to evacuate citizens from Haiti, it said without elaborating.
Haiti declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew last week in response to a deadly surge of gang violence overwhelming its capital, beginning on Feb. 29.
The ongoing unrest was confined to the center of Port-au-Prince and the city’s airport in neighboring the Tabarre commune, about 10km from the Taiwanese embassy, the ministry said.
As the embassy is in the suburban Port-au-Prince commune of Petion-Ville, it has been largely unaffected by the unrest, it said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to