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.

The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of

Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading

‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to