UN agencies concerned: USA and Cuba are sending thousands of Haitians back

Status: October 12, 2021 10:31 a.m.

Political chaos and abject poverty await migrants in Haiti who have to return. According to the UN Organization for Migration, more than 10,000 people were sent back within a few weeks – many of them children.

More than 10,000 Haitian migrants were sent back to their homeland within just under a month. From the USA alone, 7,621 people have been flown back to the poor Caribbean country since September 19, according to the UN Organization for Migration (IOM).

In addition, 1,194 Haitians were sent back from Cuba and 797 from the Bahamas. 19 percent of all those sent back are children.

UNICEF worried about the children

A representative of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF in Haiti, Bruno Maes, reported on Twitter that hundreds of Haitians were sent back from Cuba on six flights and on a boat on Saturday. Most of them said they tried to reach the US city of Miami by boat at the beginning of September.

Many children under the age of five were there, according to Maes, some were malnourished. The majority of those deported came from the southwest of Haiti, where more than 2,200 people had died in an earthquake on August 14th.

Chaos and poverty in Haiti

Bitter poverty, gang violence and political chaos prevail in Haiti. President Jovenel Moïse was shot dead in his residence at the beginning of July.

About three weeks ago around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants gathered under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, on the border with Mexico. US border guards on horses, who aggressively drove them back, caused international outrage. Migrants were also denied the opportunity to apply for asylum. Some went back to Mexico to avoid deportation.

Many Haitians had emigrated to the South American countries Brazil and Chile years ago. Because of discrimination and lack of prospects there, but also because of the hope of being able to enter the country under the new US President Joe Biden, they now dared the many thousands of kilometers long, dangerous journey to the USA. Tens of thousands of migrants are stuck at borders on the way there.

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