WJR 760 host Mitch Albom is the founder of an orphanage in Haiti. He makes regular visits to the site in the Caribbean nation but is currently stranded in the island nation after a group of gangs tried to overtake the country’s main airport.
“It’s a mess, in plain English,” Albom said while appearing on JR Morning with Guy Gordon, Lloyd Jackson, and Jamie Edmonds.
Albom was quick to point out that the children at his Have Faith Haiti orphanage are ok and not in danger due to safety measures put in place. However, he continued by giving details on just how he got to the point of being stuck in the country.
“The country is basically shut down…The long and the short of it is the acting prime minister — Ariel Henry — went to Kenya to secure troops to come here to deal with the gangs because the gangs are running rampant in the country,” Albom explained. “And now he can’t get back into the country. The gangs are basically storming all the airports and saying if he lands here, it’s going to be civil war, because they don’t want him landing. Because if he lands the Kenyans are going to come next and they’re going to come after the gangs. So the gangs are sort of making their last big stand here.”
Mitch Albom then alleged the United States government has instructed Henry to step down, but says there is a problem with that line of thinking.
“There’s nobody behind him. There’s no transitional government,” said Albom. “You could have the gangs just take over the whole country. Meanwhile, we’re all stuck here. We can’t get out. There’s no airplanes, there’s no helicopters, there’s no anything. And everybody, including our orphanage and other people, are quite frightened.”
The WJR 760 host then shared that he had broken the country’s curfew to “see if we could get out of here on a hastily arranged sort of thing that I won’t go into”, but continued by noting that “the streets are just empty because nobody feels safe and nobody wants to go out.”
“We can’t go anywhere. We can’t buy anything, and we can’t get food. Can’t get fuel delivered. So everybody slowly sort of evaporates.”
Albom added that the 60 children at the orphanage are his priority, noting that “they don’t really know a lot about it”, and have remained busy painting a mural while the unrest surrounds them.
