Now that the makeshift tent city under the Rio Bravo bridge has been dismantled, reporters and humanitarian workers collect the testimonies of those who were there, who lived for months among those shacks made of plastic and pieces of wood, often without food and water, without a hovel where you can do your own bodily needs. And they are stories that look alike. A circle of hell at the end of an exodus that lasted for some even seven years.
Many of those who were one step away from realizing their dream, right in front of the border that separates Mexico from the USA, have turned back today. Deported. Often with deception. Rescued and fed by US border guards, boarded buses and then planes, heartened by their fate and then landed on the island they love and hate. Like José, Miguel, Fiterson, Janvier, Kelly. Real or made up names. Because those who have lost everything are afraid of losing their identity as well. He still tries to hide, holding on to the hope that one day, for the umpteenth time, he will dive into this impossible journey.
United States, thousands of Haitian refugees on the border: the White House increases flights to “bring them home”
by Alberto Flores D’Arcais
A huge refugee camp
The luckiest are those who have moved two thousand kilometers further south, to the northern border of Guatemala where the other immense refugee camp is located that has become part of Tapachula, 300,000 inhabitants submerged by 30,000 migrants. Here, too, the majority are from Haiti. They left the Caribbean island after one of the last earthquakes. A cataclysm that has added to the endemic crisis that for decades, perhaps always, has condemned this atoll divided with the Dominican Republic to continuous disasters.
First landing in the slave trade and first outpost to rebel against those who had taken them by force from the African forests. Then the strong French influence, the succession of dictatorships, the iron fist of father and son Duvalier, the massacres of the Tonton Macoutes militias, the coups, the attempts of democratic governments, the elections always postponed, the rain of US dollars bestowed more to dominate than to help, the nature that rages relentlessly between typhoons and earthquakes, the crime that widens its tentacles, the UN mission that produces more damage than relief, the murder of a president by a foreign commando hired by the notables of Haiti but still shrouded in mystery.
Haiti is a political conflict after the murder of President Moïse
by Daniele Mastrogiacomo
Impossible to live on a rock that has no future but only a present made up of death and misery. All that remains is to flee, to try the turning point. “If I have to die”, these damned of the Earth tell the chroniclers of the Bbc and of The country, “Better chasing a dream. When you have nothing more to lose, everything new, even the idea that it can change your existence, gives you new energy. Because to make the journey that many of us have done requires physical strength and great will ”.
La storia di Janvier
The Bbc collects the story of Fiterson Janvier. In August 2014 he left Haiti. It arrives in Brazil by land, passing through Ecuador. It is one of the most traveled routes at that time by migrants departing from Africa and the Caribbean. “I stay a few years and then spend in Chile”, he recalls, “here I meet my future wife and together we have three children who are now 7, 5 and 3 years old. Life was hard, we were not well received. I had no hope of emerging from poverty. It was time to take the plunge, to try to go to the USA ”.
Janvier takes charge of the family and begins the ascent to the north. It will cross 11 countries. List them. Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador… by bus, on foot, in carts and trucks. From Colombia it goes to Panama. But he has to overcome a dense and dangerous jungle. A week in the middle of the bush, avoiding the traps of narcos and traffickers, paying several times for accompanying them, even police and civilians who offered hospitality.Dangers and deceptions are lurking. “I have seen dozens of corpses of other migrants. Some were from Haiti ”, he continues. “Killed as if they were prey animals. Probably they had no money left, they were a burden for the gangs that transport you on these trips ”.
United States, Haitian migrants whipped at the border: the condemnation of the White House
by Alberto Flores D’Arcais
The marathon ends in northern Mexico. Like many others, Janvier and his family camped under the Rio Bravo bridge. We know how it ends. There are attempts to ford the river and on foot, the intervention of the US Border Guard, the chases on horseback, the whipping with the bridle on those who tried to escape, the images that go around the world, the unanimous condemnation, the ‘announcement of an investigation that will lead to nothing except to establish that those who acted did so on the orders of others. Now President Biden swears that he will strike the guilty, that it will never happen again, that those whipping of men who looked like calves are unworthy of a civilized country. We will see if they are just phrases of circumstance or concrete intentions.
The large tent city where 13,000 people crowded has only moved further south. The mass of migrants continues to press between Mexico and Guatemala which have become the new wall that holds back the flows. The humanitarian crisis is being felt as far as Chile. Two days ago the great bonfire was started in the north of the country. Five thousand inhabitants of Iquique, a coastal town 1750 kilometers from Santiago, a desert area, take to the streets and head towards the camp created by the migrants.
They grab everything, place it on a clearing and set it on fire. They remain to watch fabrics and curtain rods that burn, along with bundles, mattresses, blankets, clothes, bicycles, strollers and cribs, baby clothes, diapers, notebooks, backpacks and cases. A purifying bonfire. To erase and forget. There is horror for an act that has never happened in the history of the country. The Nazis did it with books, today they burn clothes and objects, tomorrow it could directly affect humans. To the different, to the last. To those who have lost everything and only ask to return to live.
US envoy for Haiti resigns: “Inhumane treatment of migrants”
by our correspondent Anna Lombardi
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