Central airport reopens

Facility was forced to close for nearly three months due to gang violence

- DANICA COTO

People say their goodbyes before boarding a flight at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince on Monday. The reopening of the facility is expected to help ease a critical shortage of medications and other basic supplies in Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI Haiti's main international airport reopened Monday for the first time in nearly three months after relentless gang violence forced authorities to close it.

The reopening of the ToussaintLouverture airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince is expected to help ease a critical shortage of medications and other basic supplies. The country's main seaport remains badly affected. Gangs control 80 per cent of the capital.

U.S.-based airlines are not expected to start using the airport until late Mayor early June.

The first commercial passenger flight since March left for Miami nearly two hours behind schedule, with sweating passengers complaining to local carrier Sunrise Airways about the lack of air conditioning until takeoff.