Many Haitian children have been deported © Solidaridad Fronteriza/JRMS

In a wave of mass expulsions, more than 3,000 Haitians were deported from the Dominican Republic (DR) in just three days earlier this month, writes Annie Street, CIIR/ICD advocacy coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to reports from CIIR partner, the Jesuit Refugee and Migration Service (JRMS), 756 people were deported in just one day, with another 600 summarily dispatched across the border two days later. The victims were rounded up in the early hours of the morning by Dominican police and military officials, forced from their houses and loaded onto trucks, buses and military vehicles. They were then herded across the frontier at the border town of Dajabon and dumped on the Haitian side.

Regino Martinez, JRMS coordinator, said the church in Ouanaminthe - the Haitian town less than a kilometre from the border - had been equipped to provide refuge to repatriated persons but was quickly too full to handle more. Among those repatriated were children with Dominican birth certificates, he added.

The expulsions started a week after the murder of a Dominican man, allegedly by Haitians, in the northwestern town of Hatillo Palma. The incident triggered a burst of rage from local Dominicans and forced the town's Haitian residents to flee.

According to Juan Isidro Perez, a Dominican migration official responsible for directing the repatriations, the actual figure was far higher than reports suggested. 'There are thousands. More than 3,000,' he said.

In response to the repatriations, Haitian authorities closed the border in the Dominican town of Dajabon at the bridge crossing the River Masacre in an attempt to stem the tide of people flowing into the impoverished country.

Ouanaminthe - the Haitian town less than a kilometre from the border at Dajabon - is desperately poor, without proper roads, health facilities or any state provisions to care for, and assist, the repatriated people. As a result, the poor and highly traumatised repatriated people have nowhere to go and no money to survive on.

These activities by the Dominican authorities violate the country's own migration laws as well as internationally agreed conventions. The Dominican government is signatory to the American Convention of Human Rights of 1969 and Article 22 states that: 'The collective (mass) expulsion of foreigners is prohibited.'

In 1999 the Dominican Republic and Haiti signed a Protocol of Understanding on mechanisms of repatriation between the two countries. This agreement stipulates: the border points at which the repatriations can take place; the hours when people can be expelled; and the conditions under which these procedures can occur. Among these stipulations are: that families should not be separated; that people must be allowed to take their possessions; that all deportees receive a form from the Dominican state; and that the Dominican government documents the names of all deportees and provides this information to the Haitian authorities.

There is a long history of tension between the two countries that share a common border on the island of Hispaniola. The 1937 massacre of 20-30,000 Haitians by the Dominican army, under orders from Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, greatly exacerbated this tension. The river, which runs alongside the border crossing at Dajabon where the genocide took place, is still known as River Masacre, to commemorate the Haitians who died trying to escape the terror.

Today, the Dominican Republic is far more economically prosperous than its poorer neighbour. As a result, many Haitians work in the Dominican Republic, traditionally in the sugar cane plantations cutting cane, but more recently in construction and tourism. Despite widespread prejudice against Haitians, the Dominican Republic relies on them for cheap labour.

Estimates put the number of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic at anywhere between 200,000 and two million. Many of these people are third, fourth or fifth generation Haitian/Dominicans who have never been to Haiti and who have no family contacts there. Others have legal papers to work as migrant labourers and many were born in the Dominican Republic, which gives them the right to citizenship. But the racism goes deep, and sometimes flares into open hostility.

During the recent mass expulsions, the Jesuit Refugee and Migration Service, which works on both sides of the border, found violations of both national and international laws.

Those who were expelled included: 91 Dominicans of Haitian descent, all of whom had legal identity papers; 12 Dominican citizens who had their identity papers stripped and yet still appear on the Dominican electoral role; 21 families who left one or more children on the Dominican side; three migrant workers with valid migration cards, eight mothers and fathers who, although illegal themselves had Dominican children that were left behind; and three elderly people with Dominican residence.

The JRMS is making strenuous representations to defend the rights of these people and help create conditions to ensure that these mass violations of human rights are not repeated.