DR Expels 244 Haitians After Killings Along Border

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti November 24, 2013 (AP)
By EVENS SANON AND TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press



Dominican authorities expelled 244 Haitians after an elderly Dominican couple was slain in an apparent burglary near the border between the two countries and an angry mob retaliated by killing a Haitian man, a priest and migrant advocate said Sunday.

The Rev. Antoine Lissaint of Haiti's Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Organization told The Associated Press that a Dominican mob killed the man after people of Haitian descent were blamed for the fatal stabbing of the couple.

Dominican police issued a statement saying Jose Mendez Diaz and Luja Encarnacion Diaz, both 70, were killed during an apparent home burglary in which the alleged killers got away with two sacks of coffee. Detectives found a knife and stick at the scene.

A group of Haitians who have been living in the southwestern Dominican town of Neiba for the past several years sought refuge at a police station because they feared reprisal, Lissaint said. Police handed the group to Dominican soldiers who drove them to the border and expelled them back into Haiti on Saturday.

The Haiti government's National Office of Migration greeted the Haitians upon their return, giving each the equivalent of $22 to help them return to their former town, a lakeside community near the border called Thomazeau.

The Haitian government objected to the deportation on Sunday. Salim Succar, an adviser to Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, said in an email: "We have taken certain measures to welcome these people ?and disapprove of the way this repatriation was done."

Haiti and the Dominican Republic have a long history of acrimony as neighbors on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. But relations between the two have become increasingly strained since a Dominican court decision in September threatened to revoke citizenship for people of Haitian descent.

Human rights advocates say the ruling could disenfranchise more than 200,000 people, stripping them of the documents they need to work and attend school and denying them passports needed to travel overseas.

The Dominican government announced Friday it has developed a plan to resolve the legal status of people who could lose their citizenship because of the court ruling. Details will be released once a decree is signed and takes effect in the coming days.

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