Haitians desperately looking to emigrate to Dominican Republic

A large numbers of Haitians are desperately seeking to emigrate to the Dominican Republic because of heightened political and safety issues in their homeland.

The Dominican military has revealed that it has been forced to deploy many troops to the border areas as a result of the recent rise in Haitians looking to cross the frontier, with more than 13,000 undocumented people from the neighbouring country being apprehended in just a week.

Meanwhile, human rights and religious organisations have said that Haitian human traffickers had been taking advantage of the plight of such people, charging them large sums of money and promising that once they arrive in the Dominican they will be able to travel to the US via Puerto Rico.

Human rights activist Jeanson Roulet insisted it was time for Haitian and Dominican authorities to work together and stop these traffickers. He explained that families had sold their properties to move to the Dominican Republic on false promises, but that they didn’t get to see the “ugly truth” until it was too late.

Last week, immigration officials confiscated scores of passports with visas for the Dominican Republic as well as Dominican ID cards and birth certificates – all of them forged – as Haitians attempted to cross the border. The Haitians claimed they were conned by mafias who had told them they would take care of the procedure of obtaining the documents.