Santiago (Chile) / Port-au-Prince, June 19, 2026 — The scandal involving missing Haitian children in Chile has taken an even more alarming turn. As Chilean authorities search for more than 200 minors who entered the country through family reunification programs, new revelations from Chilean media outlet BioBioChile have raised serious concerns regarding a charter flight that transported more than one hundred Haitian children and whose actual route reportedly differed from the officially declared itinerary.
At the center of the case is flight WAL-801, operated by Caribbean Sun, which allegedly departed Port-au-Prince on October 15, 2025, carrying nearly 150 passengers bound for Chile. According to information published by BioBioChile, approximately 124 of those passengers were Haitian children and adolescents between the ages of six and fifteen.
However, according to documents reviewed by investigators, the aircraft did not follow its originally approved route. Although it was scheduled to fly directly to Santiago, the flight reportedly made an unscheduled stop in Lima, Peru.
It is at this point that one of the most troubling aspects of the case emerges.
According to a complaint received by Chile’s Office of the Comptroller General (Contraloría), several minors were allegedly disembarked in Lima before being transferred to another aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 operating under the same flight number, WAL-801. To date, no official explanation has been provided regarding the reasons for this operation or the authority that authorized it.
The second aircraft ultimately arrived in Santiago several hours behind schedule carrying 154 passengers, including only 44 children. Chilean authorities now acknowledge that they do not possess a complete chain of custody or traceability mechanism capable of determining with certainty what happened to all the minors originally registered on the flight.
More concerning still, BioBioChile reports that several Chilean state institutions—including the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), the Investigative Police (PDI), the National Migration Service, the Undersecretariat for Children, and the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman—had already been alerted to irregularities involving such operations while the flights were taking place.
These revelations reinforce the findings of a preliminary report issued by the Comptroller General’s Office, which identified significant deficiencies within the National Migration Service (SERMIG). Investigators cited the absence of systematic verification of family relationships, inadequate oversight of accompanying adults, incomplete databases, and the inability to track hundreds of children after their arrival in Chile.
In response to the growing scandal, President José Antonio Kast ordered the creation of a special task force dedicated to locating the affected minors. Meeting at La Moneda Palace, the crisis committee brings together the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Social Development, the National Migration Service, law enforcement agencies, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Interior Minister Claudio Alvarado stated that President Kast had demanded action “with the utmost urgency” to determine where the children are currently located and under what conditions they are living.
However, several sources consulted by Le Quotidien 509 maintain that concerns regarding the travel of Haitian minors did not begin in 2025—or even in 2024. According to these sources, warnings had reportedly circulated as early as 2023, yet no significant corrective measures were implemented by the relevant authorities.
If confirmed, the central question will no longer be merely how more than 200 children disappeared from administrative oversight, but why prior warnings failed to trigger a timely institutional response.
While Chilean authorities are currently highlighting failures within their own control systems, the case raises equally pressing questions in Haiti.
If hundreds of children departed Haiti aboard charter flights between 2023 and 2025, several critical issues remain unanswered:
Who verified the parental authorizations?
Who verified the identities of accompanying adults?
Were birth certificates properly authenticated?
Was the Haitian Institute of Social Welfare and Research (IBESR) informed of these large-scale departures of minors?
Did the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) have access to passenger manifests?
Did airlines provide complete passenger records?
Were official exit authorization files established for each child?
How could more than one hundred children board international charter flights without Haitian state control mechanisms detecting potential irregularities?
As Chile attempts to reconstruct the movements of hundreds of minors, another fundamental question remains: how many children actually left Haiti through these programs, and where are they today?
The judicial investigation opened on possible human trafficking allegations must now determine whether the documented failures resulted from administrative negligence or from a more structured network that exploited the vulnerabilities of thousands of Haitian families seeking reunification abroad.
One fact remains undeniable: the deeper investigators dig, the more this case reveals troubling grey areas that extend far beyond the framework of a simple family reunification program.
For now, Haitian authorities remain silent.
Brigitte Benshow
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