Santo Domingo.- Vatican News, the information portal of the Holy See, has denounced in a publication titled “Haiti and Dominican Republic, two hells for the same people”, that the Dominican Republic is carrying out a “hunt” against Haitian migrants who are exposed to constant violations of their human rights.
According to the article, signed by Greta Giglio, more than a million Haitians reside in the Dominican Republic in refugee status.
Quoting Marco Garbari, a volunteer from the Jesuit NGO Centro Montalvo, who spent two years on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, they indicate that in the country there is “a real hunt for Haitians. They are captured anywhere: on the street, at work, in hospitals, in their homes. And it doesn’t matter if they are adults or children, they are taken and loaded onto trucks.”
The note was also based on statements from Sister Eugenia, a Scalabrinian missionary who operates in Santo Domingo, who highlighted that government measures have generated a wave of widespread violence and the “abuse of power by public authorities”, authorized to exercise forms of persecution against Haitian migrants.
Sister Eugenia stated that many women avoid going to hospitals for fear of being deported, which puts their lives and those of their children at risk during childbirth.
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