MANCHESTER, N.H. — Amidst growing gang violence and unrest, a Manchester man was able to escape Haiti in late March after being trapped for roughly a month.
Frantzy Saintelus was born and raised in Haiti. He moved to the United States when he was 14. His family settled down in Manchester, New Hampshire and he has lived there for decades.
Despite growing violence on the island, Frantzy decided to visit Haiti in late February. He flew into Port-au-Prince and immediately recognized danger.
“When I tried to get to the city, I realized more guys with guns and less people on the road,” he explained.
Saintelus stayed with extended family at his childhood home 15 miles outside the city.
After nearly two weeks and just days before Frantzy returned home, his son Alex in Virginia realized all flights out of the island were canceled because of the violence.
“I made peace with God that my dad might die,” Alex told Boston 25 News Thursday. “The likelihood of him getting a flight out was 0 at that point… You can’t go by land, you can’t go by sea, you can’t go by air.”
A civics teacher at a Virginia middle school, Alex took two days off from work to help his father escape the island by any means necessary.
“I was calling politicians in Virginia, calling politicians up in New Hampshire. Both senators’ offices were extremely helpful.”
Alex had minimal contact with his father who struggled to find a power source and service for his phone while he hunkered down at his family’s home.
After weeks of waiting, Alex was alerted that a helicopter from the State Department would be able to help his father and 40 other trapped Americans across the Haitian border.
He added that New Hampshire Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan were crucial in helping organize the escape plan.
Alex alerted his father he had 24 hours to make it to the U.S. Embassy just outside Port-au-Prince.
Frantzy told Boston 25 News the trip took roughly two hours by bus and through gang checkpoints on the roads. When the bus couldn’t take him any closer, Frantzy paid a motorcyclist to take him to the embassy where a helicopter awaited.
Alex continued, “He flew on a flight to the Dominican Republic. He got picked up by some cousins and he stayed there for a couple days. Then, he got on a flight flew into Miami, and then flew into Boston.”
Frantzy is now safe back in the Granite State. But many of his family members and innocent Haitians, he tells us, are desperate to flee the chaos.
“What’s next for my country?” Frantzy asked. “I didn’t want to leave because I had a feeling when I have a chance to go back again … to what?”
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