The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, has criticized the United Nations statements on Haitian deportations, assuring that his Executive will continue to repatriate Haitian citizens to his country.
Abinader has expressed his «categorical» rejection of the «unacceptable and irresponsible» statements «offered by (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) Volker Turk» on Thursday, in which he asked the countries of the region to stop the deportations of Haitian migrants.
«The migration policy of each country is the power of each government, therefore, these statements are unacceptable and irresponsible,» said the Dominican president, as reported in a press release from the Presidency of the country.
He also assured that his Cabinet «will continue to repatriate Haitian citizens who are in the country illegally».
In this line, Abinader – who has emphasized that his country «has been the most supportive among all the countries of the world» with the Haitian situation – has added that the Dominican Government will increase the repatriations starting next week.
This Thursday the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights insisted to the authorities of the Dominican Republic to cease the forced returns of Haitians to the western margin of the island of Hispaniola.
«A week ago I called for a halt to deportations to Haiti, given the humanitarian and human rights crisis facing the country. I am concerned to see the continued forced returns of Haitians to Haiti from the Dominican Republic,» Turk said in a statement.
According to the UN High Representative, Haiti does not currently meet the adequate security conditions for the «safe, dignified and sustainable» return of migrants given the «incessant armed violence and systematic human rights violations».
Hours before, the spokesman of the Presidency, Homero Figueroa, informed that between the months of August and October of this year, the Dominican authorities repatriated more than 60,200 Haitians, while in the whole year the figure increases to 108,000 Haitians.
