Despite international protests, the Dominican Republic has decided to declare the citizenships of over 200.000 Haitian immigrants ‘void’. This means that they will have to leave the country, or risk deportation from 1 August onwards. With nowhere to go and the Haitian government unable to provide for the returnees, a refugee crisis is looming. Jan Voordouw and Dominique Pierre Lenz of the Cordaid Haiti office traveled to the border between the two countries to assess the situation.
The people who are now about to be ‘repatriated’ from the Dominican Republic are mostly descendants of Haitian immigrants. Many of them were born in the Dominican Republic and had official citizenship. A Supreme Court decision in September 2013 changed their status; from citizens they became ‘undocumented immigrants’. These illegals, an estimated 200.000, are to be deported to Haiti starting August 1st. Fearing violence or detention, many have decided not to wait and have resorted to living in tents just across the Dominican/ Haitian border, in no man’s land.
Haiti, being a country with few means, has no resources to cater for the thousands of repatriates. NGOs and churches are trying to provide them with some assistance such as blankets and food, but coordinated relief efforts are still a long way away. Jan Voordouw, country director of Cordaid Haiti and Dominique Pierre Lenz, Security & Justice Officer went to the border zone and photographed the people in the makeshift refugee camps.
Cordaid found as many as 1000 families living in the two camps they visited for assessment. “There is absolutely no government initiative to take in these people,” Dominique says. “Cordaid is planning to hand out emergency kits with hygiene and kitchen items, but we have only 300 to 400 kits. I don’t think these kits will be sufficient for all those people. They do not have anything at all!”