LETTER FROM THE CARIBBEAN
One October evening, in the space of a few minutes, Rose-Merline Florvil's life was turned upside down. "I was at home and there was a knock on the door. I went to open it. It was the immigration authorities," said the 24-year-old Haitian national, deported from the Dominican Republic on Friday, October 11. "I didn't have time to get dressed. They grabbed me and threw me in the back of a truck," continued the pastry chef in a voice choked with emotion. She is from Arcahaie, a port town not far from Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
Fleeing poverty, but most importantly the rampant insecurity caused by criminal gangs who have been sowing terror in Haiti for several years, the young woman moved to Saint- Domingue, capital of the neighboring country, in May. She was joining her partner, a house painter who emigrated three years earlier, and was looking for work. The couple have been separated by the hasty arrest of this young woman, who is four months pregnant. "I was caught without my husband. He wasn't at home," added Florvil.
After several hours on the road, in "appalling" transport conditions, the migrant was driven back to the Haitian side of the 376-kilometer-long border that snakes from the north to the south of the island of Hispaniola. There, she was taken in by a Haitian NGO, the Support Group for Returnees and Refugees, in the town of Belladère, located in the center of the island. Having mislaid her phone during this nightmarish journey, the young woman is still desperately trying to contact her partner and loved ones. "I have no money left to go home, I have nothing to eat," explained Florvil, sobbing into the phone lent to her by a member of the NGO.
Since the beginning of October, deportations of Haitian nationals living in the Dominican Republic, like the young pastry chef from Arcahaie, have stepped up, following a decision by Dominican President Luis Abinader. At an October 2 defense council meeting with the army's top brass, the leader made the decision to expel, with immediate effect, "up to 10,000 immigrants per week," according to a presidential press release. Intended to "reduce the surplus immigrant population" in the country, the text added that the measure must be accompanied by "strict protocols guaranteeing respect for the human rights and dignity of those deported."
Triumphantly re-elected in May, Abinader is further toughening an already muscular deportation policy with this decision. By 2023, the Dominican authorities had deported 251,011 Haitian nationals – that is, almost 5,000 a week – against the backdrop of a deep diplomatic crisis between the two Caribbean countries of 11 million inhabitants each. According to initial government figures, this migration drive is well on the way to achieving its objectives. In the first week of mass repatriations, from October 3 to 10, more than 11,000 Haitians were sent back to their country of origin.
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