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Disappointed Haitian migrants return home from Chile
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 8, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Chile’s military on Wednesday
returned to their home country a first group of destitute Haitian migrants as
part of a broader repatriation plan.
The 184 migrants that landed in Port-au-Prince expressed satisfaction in
being back on their island though they knew conditions had not improved.
“We cannot find work in Chile,” said a young woman as she disembarked from
the plane, having spent two years in the South American country. “The living
conditions are worse than in Haiti,” she added.
A thousand Haitians have enrolled in the plan by Chilean government, which
provides them with a military plane for the return trip.
Only 70,000 of the 200,000 Haitians currently living in Chile hold papers
entitling them to stay in Chile indefinitely.
But the future of those who have decided to return is just as uncertain.
Economic indicators have dropped in the last 20 months in Haiti, the poorest
nation in the Americas.
The first migrants returning from Chile were almost left to their own
devices on Wednesday night at the Port-au-Prince airport.
Haitian Ministers of Social Affairs and Haitians living abroad, who came
to greet them, tried in vain to reassure them.
Pierre Garot Nere, executive director of the Collective of Organizations
for the Defense of the Rights of Migrants and Returnees, slammed what he
called the lack of planning by Haitian authorities to receive these migrants.
“This is a total disappointment. There was no planning to welcome home
these Haitians who have had trouble” abroad, he said.
He also said that many of these Haitians had been victims in Chile, one of
Latin America’s wealthiest countries, of “exclusion” and “racism.”
BSS/AFP/MSY/1000 hrs