Dutch accelerate adoption procedure for 100 Haitian children

Dutch adoption officials are to travel to Haiti Monday to fetch 100 children from the Caribbean island under an accelerated adoption procedure, DPA reported.

A special flight is to depart from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to pick up the children, previously given up for adoption to Dutch couples.

The plane will also take dozens of health workers to Haiti to provide relief aid in the aftermath of last Tuesday's earthquake.

The adoption agencies organizing the flight, Wereldkinderen and the NAS Netherlands Adoption Foundation, said that under normal circumstances it would have taken "several years" for the Haitian authorities to finalize all the legal paperwork.

Over the weekend, Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said the 100 children, whose adoption by Dutch nationals had already been approved by Haitian authorities, could come to the Netherlands in an accelerated procedure.

The adoption of nine other Haitian children would also be settled in a rapid procedure, a ministry spokesperson said.

On Sunday, six adopted Haitian children arrived at Eindhoven's military airport.

Twenty-two Dutch nationals were still reported missing in Haiti, the Dutch foreign affairs ministry said.