Montreal humanitarian mission arrives in Haiti

Montreal police officers, doctors and nurses left Trudeau International Airport early Wednesday morning bound for Haiti to help out in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake in the island nation.

The group, organized by the City of Montreal, left just before a magnitude 6.1 aftershock struck Haiti at around 6 a.m. Wednesday.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the aftershock was centered about 60 kilometres from Port-au-Prince.

The more than 30 volunteers from Montreal are part of a humanitarian mission called Koudmen, a Creole word meaning "helping hand." All the volunteers are of Haitian origin and speak Creole.

Many of the volunteer officers and medical staff have relatives and friends who were either killed in the earthquake or are missing in Haiti. They are expected to stay for a couple of weeks.

Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said the team will provide medical assistance and supplies. It will also provide feedback on the reconstruction process in Haiti and on people who want to immigrate to Montreal.

The 18 police officers will join 28 Montreal police officers who are already there and offer assistance to the local Haitian police force, he said. But, they won't be in uniform.

"They're doing it as citizens; they're not armed," Tremblay said. "But they don't need to be armed for what they're going to be doing. [They're] more our eyes and ears in Port-au-Prince to give us instant feedback every moment of the day to see what else we can do to assist out Haitian community in Montreal."

Cmdr. Jean-Ernest Celestin, a 19-year veteran of the Montreal police force and commander of Station 15 in Montreal, is one of the volunteers.

"First thing, we have to go see our police officers, and then, we'll see," Celestin said. "We have to see how the city is, how everything is, how demanding it is, how can we help.

"It's a lot of questions we don't know. But, I think just by going there, it means something to us — being there."

The flight also included members of the group Cooks Without Borders

"We don't know what we will have [to cook with] – probably rice," said member Alexandre Langlois.

Operation Koudmen also has a domestic component, with as many as 70 officers and civil servants with linguistic or cultural ties to Haiti having been deployed to neighbourhoods in Montreal with large Haitian populations in the wake of the earthquake.