Haitian babies fly to France

French families adopt 300 children from earthquake-hit country

More than 100 children from Haiti arrived in France yesterday to start new lives with their adoptive families an event some parents described as an early Christmas present.

Many children were bundled up in bright new winter coats, and some were wrapped in silvery reflective blankets to keep out the unaccustomed cold, as they arrived in Paris from their Caribbean homeland.

The French government had chartered a plane to bring adoptive families to Haiti to pick up 113 children from the country, which is still reeling from a January earthquake and now a deadly cholera epidemic.

Adoptive mother Isabelle Frapat, holding 15-month-old Mael in her arms, told reporters the experience was "pure happiness, and all that at Christmas time".

Adoptive father Barque Partube called the arrival "a very, very nice Christmas gift".

The flight to Paris brought the first group of over 300 children who are expected to start a new life in France. Another flight is expected tomorrow.

Sensitive subject

The French government had been under pressure from adoptive families to speed up the complex proceedings.
International adoption is a sensitive subject in Haiti.

After the earthquake, a group of US missionaries tried to take 33 children out of the country without proper documents, claiming they were orphans. They all had at least one living parent.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has been struggling to reconstruct buildings since the natural disaster struck almost 12 months ago.

2.3 lakh
Number of people who died in the earthquake in Haiti on January 12

Dj suspended

A DJ in New York has been suspended indefinitely over an on-air comment linking Haitian women to HIV.

"The reason I'm HIV negative is because I don't mess with Haitian girls," DJ Cipha Sounds said last week on
hip-hop station HOT 97.

The comment sparked outrage in New York's Haitian community, prompting activists and local leaders to call for his dismissal. Sounds later apologised for his "stupid tasteless joke".