Plane carrying Haitian orphans to arrive in the Netherlands

posted on: Jan 21 2010 11:32 by The Reporter. Viewed 640 times.


A plane carrying 106 Haitian orphans is to arrive in the Netherlands this Thursday afternoon, the Dutch justice ministry said. The children are among a larger group which Haitian authorities had approved for adoption before last week's catastrophic earthquake, the ministry said.

The adoption proceedings were accelerated as a result of the disaster.

Letje Vermunt, spokeswoman for the Netherlands Adoption Foundation NAS, said that 92 children would be given up for adoption to Dutch parents, while the remaining 14 would be transferred to adoptive parents in Luxemburg.

Families were eager to receive the children on Thursday but also worried about the health of children after the quake, said Vermunt. The agency is one of two that organizes adoptions.

"It's a contradictory feeling," he said. "Laughter and tears are very close together.'"

The children were accompanied on the flight on Thursday by a team of doctors, including some with expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some of the children speak a little Dutch after receiving daily lessons in an orphanage in Haiti.

Following their arrival at the military airport of Eindhoven at 4 pm (1500 GMT), the children are to be transferred to their adoptive parents.

Vermunt said medical staff had examined the childrens' health during the flight to the Netherlands and confirmed that they were "relatively alright."

The earthquake, which killed some 200,000 people and left thousands of orphans, brought a flood of queries in the world to adopt children from Haiti. Before the earthquake and it was estimated that the country had about 380,000 orphans.

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