Port-au-Prince.- The NGO Support Group for Repatriated and Refugees (GARR), asserts that the lives of many sick Haitians in the Dominican Republic are in danger because “people are afraid to go to the hospital” and be expelled due to the new measures enacted by President Luis Abinader to address illegal migration in the country.
In an interview with EFE, the coordinator of GARR, Katia Bonté, denounces this violation, as well as the “persecution” of pregnant women in Dominican hospitals and the inaction of the Haitian authorities in the face of the mass deportations of Haitians in an irregular migratory situation from the Dominican Republic.
According to data from this organization that defends the rights of migrants and works in border areas with the Dominican Republic, in March alone, 17,390 Haitians were repatriated by the neighboring country, another 9,782 were rejected when trying to enter without documents, and 18,147 returned to Haiti on their own.
“There is a hunt for pregnant women,” which is “flagrant, even dehumanizing,” “the person loses all their dignity when giving birth on the street,” underlines Bonté, who points out that 77 pregnant women were returned to Haiti in March (28 repatriated, 26 voluntarily returned, and 23 rejected), while unaccompanied minors returned amount to 342.
Among the latest measures of the Dominican Government against irregular migration, there is a controversial protocol by which public hospitals verify that patients have a valid identification, work letter, proof of address, and that they cover the cost of the services received. Otherwise, they are medically attended and, once recovered, deported.
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Regarding the way expulsions are carried out, the NGO states that “the protocol signed in 1996 on repatriation is not respected. The protocol stipulates that the person must be given time to collect their belongings. They are not given any time for this.”
This generates a circular migration of people who return to the Dominican Republic after being deported without their belongings after spending 20 or 30 years working. In addition, many of them leave their families there.
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Bonté denounces that migrants are detained at their workplaces, children on their way to school, others when they go to church, in the streets or in their homes.
Difficult situation in Belladère
The situation is “very complicated at the border,” assures the coordinator of an NGO that has been documenting deportations for about thirty years.
While these occur mainly at official border points, the city of Belladère is the one that, at least since October, receives the most deportees from the Dominican Republic. There, the GARR has a reception center.
But since March, Belladère has been invaded by armed groups that sow terror and force thousands of people to flee, to which are added the clashes between gangs and police and the blockade of road accesses, which prevents the movement of people and goods between this city and the rest of the country.
“In Belladère, the situation is quite complicated due to the advance of gangs in the Central Plateau (center of Haiti). This makes it difficult for many migrants who arrive to return to their communities of origin,” which also occurs in border areas such as Anse-à-Pitres (southeast) and Ouanaminthe (northeast).
Bonté points out that the roads are controlled by the gangs and access to them is “extremely difficult and very costly. If they manage to get through, it is very risky and very expensive. This causes many deported people to stay at the border”.
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This blockade also affects supplies: the GARR headquarters is in Port-au-Prince and its stocks in Belladère are beginning to run out.
“We are overwhelmed. The State is practically absent. Our space is limited to 60 people, but sometimes we receive between 200 and 250. Our budget was not prepared for this (…) We do not really have the financial means to respond to this influx of deportees,” acknowledges Bonté, who fears not being able to continue doing so due to lack of resources and who complains of not having received a single call from the authorities.
Requests that the State create the conditions for Haitians to be able to stay and live in their country (generating employment and guaranteeing security) and that it enter into conversations with the Dominican authorities: “A dialogue between the States is necessary. Even to request a kind of moratorium for certain categories, such as the elderly, women, newborns and children”.
