Montreal church group leaves Haiti for safety reasons

A group of 60 young Montreal volunteers working in Haiti came home Wednesday — months before they wanted to — because they feared for their personal safey.

The church group was helping to build a community centre and medical clinic in the small town of Tiverny, about 200 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince.

The town of 1,200 was not affected by last week's massive earthquake,  group member Louis-Philippe Bougie said, but  thousands of displaced people flocked to Tiverny, fleeing Haiti's urban centres.

These people were hungry and desperate, making the group worry about their safety, Bougie, 19, said.

"It was too risky because, first of all, we're Canadians. We're white — as they call us, les Blancs. Basically, they see us as sources of money and food," he said.

"We have our own building in the village. Even if we have a wall around [it], it's still dangerous because they can still come in the building and ask us for food and even give us threats."

Still, Bougie said, leaving was difficult and he hopes to go back soon to continue the work his group started.

"We were ready to stay about three more months to help, but we had to leave,"  he said.

The church group's flight from Haiti was the 18th such flight to arrive in Montreal since the start of the rescue effort late last week.