
(6 Aug 2015) Many Haitian migrants forced to leave neighbouring Dominican Republic because they couldn’t obtain legal residency are now living in tent settlements in their native homeland.
Families rely on food donations to survive and have built shacks made out of bed sheets, plastic and wooden sticks in the border city of Anse-a-Pitres.
61-year-old Elissene Jean Louis said he lived in the Dominican Republic for 40 years and chose to return to Haiti to avoid deportation.
He has built a tent for his partner and their four children in Anse-a-Pitres.
Tens of thousands of Haitians have flowed into Haiti since June when the Dominican Republic cracked down on non-citizens living in the country without legal documentation.
Most of those affected are Haitian or of Haitian descent.
Many have chosen to voluntarily return to Haiti instead of waiting to be deported by Dominican authorities.
28-year-old Molene Charles said she fled Dominican Republic before being forcibly removed and left all her belongings behind.
“I would not go there despite the misery that I am living here. I won’t return to Santo Domingo,” Charles said.
Haiti’s prime minister Evans Paul has accused the Dominican Republic of creating a humanitarian crisis with its crackdown on migrants.
Luc Leandre Cure, the priest at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Anse-a-Pitres, helped some of the deportees by having his church deliver food.
Cure says that without potable water, electricity or permanent housing the people in the tent camps are enduring “very difficult” living conditions.
An estimated 460,000 Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Non-citizens who didn’t meet the Dominican government’s June deadline to register with its immigration program and apply for legal residency could be deported.
Find out more about AP Archive:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Instagram:
You can license this story through AP Archive:
source