(AP) — The Dominican Republic said Tuesday it has deported or repatriated nearly 11,000 Haitians in the past week, fulfilling a pledge to do so weekly as neighboring Haiti scrambles to handle the influx while besieged by gang violence and poverty.
The Dominican government announced last week that it would deport up to 10,000 Haitians a week, citing an “excess” of immigrants as relations between the countries that share the island of Hispaniola continue to sour. These are the largest such deportations in recent history there.
The announcement prompted Haitian officials to request an emergency meeting at the Organization of American States, where Haitian permanent representative Gandy Thomas called the deportations “a strategy of ethnic cleansing” and “a discriminatory campaign against Haitians due to their nationality and color of their skin.”
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Thomas called for dialogue and a “respectful solution,” saying the deportations will “worsen the fragility of our infrastructure while the deportees will arrive with no support, no resources and no ties to their community.”
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At least half a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, according to human rights groups.
Activists say the deportations put the lives of thousands at risk. A U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police that began earlier this year to try to quell gang violence is facing a lack of funds and personnel.
“There are a great number of armed groups that are just like birds of prey waiting to swoop down and take advantage of these people,” said Sam Guillaume with Haiti’s Support Group for Returnees and Refugees.
Guillaume accused Dominican authorities of “hunting down” Haitians, asserting that some are extorted, raped or held in jail with no water or food and subjected to beatings or tear gas “if they dare say boo.”
Radhafil Rodríguez, adviser to the OAS’ Dominican Republic mission, said the government rejected accusations of mistreatment and would take any complaint “very seriously” and investigate it.
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He said Haiti’s crisis is disproportionately affecting the Dominican Republic, asserting that migrants are overwhelming schools, clinics and hospitals.
Rodríguez said his country stands in solidarity with the people of Haiti during their crisis but added that no one can expect it to halt deportations.
Both Rodríguez and Thomas called for dialogue as officials in Haiti urgently met to talk about the deportations and established a working group to handle the influx of migrants and their needs.
“The forced and mass deportation of our Haitian compatriots from the Dominican Republic is a violation of the fundamental principles of human dignity,” Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille wrote on social media platform X on Tuesday.
The mass deportations have led to an increase in abandoned children across the Dominican Republic, warned activist William Charpentier, coordinator for the Dominican-based National Coalition for Migrations and Refugees.
“They take their parents, or one of the parents, and leave the children behind, even while they’re in school,” he said.
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Charpentier called the deportations “a type of persecution against Black people, against everything they presume to be Haitian.”
He said even people with legal documents are being detained and deported, a practice that activists say has occurred in previous years.
Allegations of extortion have surged.
Ocicle Batista, a 45-year-old Haitian migrant who sells avocados in the capital, Santo Domingo, accused soldiers of demanding $230 to $330 to avoid deportations “even when they have their papers in hand,” she said of migrants.
“We come here to work,” she said.
Luis Rafael Lee Ballester, the Dominican Republic’s migration director, said human rights are being respected and that a proportional use of force is used when migrants are arrested.
He said those with documents were detained because they did not have “reliable identification” to justify their presence in the country.
From Oct. 1-7, 7,591 people were deported and 3,323 repatriated, according to the government, which said all were Haitian.
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Phew. That’s a whole population right there. Regrettably all the neighbouring volunteers to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and others would continue to see influx of Haitians that are trying to escape the tragic and worsened situation in the country. With the little that Caricom and the international community has done, it is grossly inadequate and insufficient. Haiti needs a strong international force to help to temper the actions of the gangs if normalcy is to be restored to the country. The handful of Kenyan police and Caricom soldiers are useless and insufficient and cannot stand up to the gangs that are well armed and in great numbers.
And when Antiguans say anything about them they love to cry that we are xenophobic.
This same country left many Haitians stateless, you know? Even Haitians BORN there. They’re f*cking wicked.
Yet his people continue to flock to places like Antigua for economic reasons to the point where they have become emboldened to be politicaly active, being used by politicians, and no one is deporting them back home.
You see how they treat the poor Haitians? But this useless ALP government bring all these racist Dominicans to abuse black people. All dem Spanish people need to be deported from every Caricom country.
And to be of comparison: Imagine little Antigua have given succor, solace and comfort; so generously the the Dominicans population here: with secure knowledge that they endorse, and encourage discrimination against all people of African heritage; who does not speak Spanish, and act in preferences as assuming that they are akin to be White’s-and that a half-breed person (mistesta) is better than a pure breed of African decent. This is their guilt conflict of being drained of their indigenous DNA, by their subjugation to the European (Spaniards) of which they freely submitted by comingling without resistance or, respect for their indigenous heritage: thus giving way, and sway to a whole continent giving up their culture and language in preferences for a European assumption of being Spaniards a downgraded condescension to being Hispanics wanting to be Spaniards.
Yet dem ya and OVERRUN our tiny country like German cockroach look at the state of lower tindale road ITS A TOTAL MESS!!!!! Dem tek over the whole of lower all saints Rd. The people are very racist THEY DO NOT LIKE ANYONE DARKER THAN THEIR BUTTER COLOUR. Don’t u see they don’t even mix with antiguans all they r is USERS but our people r too blind to see but that’s what happens DEM OBEAR TRANG ask the one that have the bar on kentish road by the gutter that got the big alter in the back a he bedroom. I CANT STAND SPANISH NEGGA