Haiti - FLASH : 45 to 60 flights of expulsion of Haitians expected in Port-au-Prince
Monday, September 20, 233 Haitian deportees arrived in Haiti, including 45 children and 45 women and 143 men. Several evicted women carried a child or a baby in their arms. Some had legal documents from countries like Chile and Brazil, others did not. However, all the children accompanying them were born elsewhere than in Haiti and therefore have a foreign nationality.
Haiti was expecting three repatriation flights from the United States on Monday, but only two arrived. Most of the deportees are between 20 and 30 years old and left Haiti 6 and 10 years ago. Almost all are fluent in Spanish or Portuguese.
Jean Négot Bonheur, the coordinator of the National Migration Office (ONM), made it clear that "The conditions of expulsions do not depend on us, they are determined by the host country [USA]" moreover he revealed that each day, "three flights are expected in Haiti each day for the next 15 to 20 days to receive all the compatriots who are stranded on the American side of the border with Mexico."
Several of the migrants say they were mistreated by US border officials. "They treated the Haitians like thieves. Haitians are not thieves, but people in search of a better life. They did not treat people from other Nations that way. It's racism," said an expelled woman.
