DR: Jesuit Refugee Service calls for DR to accept Haitian refugees

The Jesuit Refugee Service has called on the authorities to allow people fleeing the violence in Haiti to take refuge on Dominican soil, while the government has stated it has not yet considered setting up refugee camps in the border region. Padre Jose Nunez, the JRS director, said that although the government has the right to police the frontier, it should not do so to the extent to deny entry to people whose lives are at risk and who seek political asylum in the Dominican Republic. He added that there should also be a hiatus in repatriations of illegal Haitian migrants until the situation in their home country is normalized.

Nunez said that many repatriated migrants would be at risk of death back in Haiti, while others would not be able to make their way home due to the unrest. He also cited the food shortages in Haiti and asked that Dominican markets near the border not be closed, as they have become essential sources for food and supplies for thousands of Haitian families that have been cut off from the major commercial centers within Haiti, such as Port-au-Prince and other cities. Increasing hunger and desperation within Haiti would put even more pressure on the Dominican Republic, said the Jesuit priest, who spoke at a press conference yesterday. Nunez also said that the Dominican authorities should be making contingency plans for the likely influx of refugees and that international humanitarian organizations, such as the Red Cross and Intermon-Oxfam, were already assembling at the border. For its part, the Haitian pastoral service has said that the DR is ill-equipped to receive large numbers of refugees without international assistance. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called on the Dominican government to receive Haitian refugees, should a mass exodus take place. The Dominican Senate and opposition PLD Presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez have each rejected the proposal that the DR accept Haitian refugees. Yesterday's Senate resolution declared that the DR was experiencing a serious economic crisis and was in no shape to shoulder its neighbor's problems.