Twenty Haitian refugees, including seven uniform-clad students and a three-year-old boy, arrived in Jamaica yesterday when their boat ran aground at Hector's River in Portland...
News Source: Jamaica Gleaner
The group, which arrived aboard a 15-footer, also included three women, two of whom were pregnant. The new arrivals push the number of Haitians landing in Jamaica to 30 since last Saturday.
Describing their homeland as a country under siege, they said they left behind the slain bodies of their parents and other loved ones. The refugees reportedly left Haiti at 2:00 a.m. on Monday, before the boat ran aground at 2:00 p.m. yesterday at Hector's River, near the Happy Grove High School.
As a result of the impact, the refugees sustained a number of facial injuries, and eyewitness accounts suggest that a number of them were bleeding heavily.
Reports indicate that residents in the area were quick to offer assistance in terms of clothing, bedding, food and shelter.
"Several members of the party were injured after their boat ran ashore among rocks at Hector's River. Three of the students sustained injuries to their face and hands, but nothing too severe," Inspector Desroy Livingston, of the Portland police, told The Gleaner yesterday.
"Except for injuries, they looked healthy, but they will be processed."
Representatives of response agencies such as Red Cross, the Parish Council Disaster Committees, and the Office of the Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management were also on the scene to process the new arrivals.
The refugees will be held at the Manchioneal Police Station, after which they will be transferred to the Port Antonio Police Station.
In the meantime, a joint meeting between a number of Government agencies, emergency relief planners, and the Police High Command will be held today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to plot strategies to respond to the mushrooming problem in neighbouring Haiti.
The Ministry of National Security has also beefed up the border patrol activities of the Coast Guard to monitor the situation.
THREATENS JAMAICA'S SECURITY
Speaking with the press minutes after a function yesterday, Minister of National Security Dr. Peter Phillips said the Government had "a direct self-interest in ensuring that the situation in Haiti does not deteriorate because it threatens our security environment in this country."
"We have to see if there are large numbers to accommodate; we have to ensure that there is no deterioration in the humanitarian situation, and ensure that the Coast Guard is in a situation where, if there are large numbers, we don't encounter great loss of life on the part of persons that might be involved," Minister Phillips said.
Last weekend, 10 armed Haitian refugees, including eight policemen, were picked up by local authorities off the shore of Manchioneal, Portland. At least 56 persons have been killed in the escalating unrest in Haiti to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In the meantime, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights said it welcomed reports of the Government-led initiative to 'map' strategies to house and assist large numbers of refugees from Haiti.
However, the IJCHR also urged the Government to use the present situation as an opportunity to "clearly set out the procedure for treatment of asylum seekers in Jamaica."
