PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian activists on Thursday demanded that other countries temporarily halt deportations to their countries due to a rise in gang violence and rising poverty.
Tens of thousands of people have been deported to Haiti in the past month, mainly from the Dominican Republic, whose president recently promised to deport approximately 10,000 migrants per week.
The Caribbean country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, deported nearly 61,000 migrants to Haiti from October 2 to November 5, according to the latest government figures.
In October, the US deported 258 Haitians, while Turks & Caicos Islands, Jamaica and the Bahamas have deported a total of 231 people, said Sam Guillaume, a spokesman for the Haitian Support Group for Returnees and Refugees.
He noted that many of those deported to Haiti remain homeless.
“Many of them cannot return home because their neighborhood is controlled by gangs,” he said.
As a result, some deportees are temporarily living along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, hoping to cross the border again.
Gangs now control 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and gunmen are ruthless in attacking once peaceful communities.
The deportees now join the more than 700,000 people left homeless by gang violence in recent years.
That group includes more than 12,000 people who fled neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince after last month’s attacks, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Those held for deportation in the Dominican Republic are forced into overcrowded prisons without water, without food and without beds, and when they defend their rights they are sometimes tear-gassed, Guillaume said.
“People are being treated like criminals,” he said.
He added that some organizations helping Haitians in the Dominican Republic are also under attack.
A spokesperson for Dominican President Luis Abinader was not immediately available for comment.
Guillaume said Dominicans who smuggle Haitians into their country sometimes kidnap them and demand up to $300 for their release.
Katia Bonte, coordinator of the Haitian Support Group for Returnees and Refugees, said the migrants they are helping are in urgent need of food, water, medical aid, hygiene kits and other essential supplies.
The request to temporarily halt deportations comes from newly elected US President Donald Trump promises mass deportations once he is sworn in, although many questions remain about how his administration would do that.
The Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, a New York-based group, said Thursday that refugees, migrants and others “will face escalating challenges” in the wake of the U.S. presidential election.
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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.