PARC
CADEAU 2, Haiti — Along this arid strip of borderland, the river
brings life. Its languid waters are used to cook the food, quench the
thirst and bathe the bodies of thousands of Haitian migrants who have
poured onto its banks from the Dominican Republic, fleeing threats of violence and deportation.
These
days, the river also brings death. Horrid sanitation has led to a
cholera outbreak in the camps, infecting and killing people who spilled
over the border in recent months in hopes of finding refuge here.
Nearly
3,000 people have arrived in the makeshift camps since the spring,
leaving the Dominican Republic by force or by fear after its government
began a crackdown on illegal migrants. Some, born in the Dominican
Republic but unable to prove it, cannot even speak French or Creole, Haiti’s main languages, showing how wide a net the Dominican government has cast.
Haitian
officials have done almost nothing to support them. The population is
scattered across the drought-racked southwest border, mostly barren
plains. Families of eight sleep in tents fashioned from sticks and
cardboard. They drink river water, struggle to find food, and make do
without toilets or medical attention.
Now
stateless, the refugees exist in the literal and figurative space
between two nations that, along with their island, share a history
steeped in hostility. Some of the camps were created decades ago, during
another iteration of their troubled pasts, but had long since been
abandoned. Now, in a new cycle of tension between the nations, they are
packed to capacity once again.
The plight along the border is reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of the devastating 2010 earthquake, which claimed the lives of 100,000 to 316,000 Haitians
and summoned a wave of billions of dollars in aid. Even today, more
than 60,000 displaced people still reside in tent cities around the
country.
Only
this time, the upheaval is man-made, the result of the policies of the
Dominican Republic and the seeming indifference of the Haitian
government. The authorities in Haiti do not even formally recognize that
the camps exist.
“I
haven’t felt normal since my son died,” said David Toussaint, 55, whose
9-year-old boy was one of at least 10 people in the camps to die of
cholera. Officials say more than 100 people have been infected.
He
lifted himself from a bed his family built in their tent, covered with a
frayed tarp. He spends his days there, immobilized by grief. An acrid
smell filled the hot air as dust swirled into the tent, cloaking
everything.
“This is no way to live,” he said.
When
the Dominican government announced that all migrants in the country
illegally had to register this June, mass deportations were feared.
Those later rounded up were taken largely from remote areas, and bused
quietly to border crossings. In total, more than 10,000 people were
expelled officially, with nearly another 10,000 people claiming to have
been kicked out as well, according to the International Organization for Migration.
But
in this climate of fear, an even bigger phenomenon emerged: Tens of
thousands of people of Haitian descent decided to leave the Dominican
Republic on their own, rather than risk deportation, including some who
were born on Dominican soil and knew nothing of Haiti.
To
choose hunger and squalor in the camps over the risk of staying in the
Dominican Republic is, on the surface, a puzzling decision. But history
looms large between the two countries. Dozens of Haitian refugees said
that, when the law was announced, their neighbors began to intimidate
them, threatening to burn down their homes and steal their animals.
For
many Haitians who have lived in the Dominican Republic as laborers for
generations, such threats are not idle. The mass murder of 9,000 to
20,000 Haitians ordered by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in
1937 remains etched in the minds of Haitians young and old.
In the current atmosphere, even outrageous threats gained traction.
“They
said they would drop bombs on our homes,” said Milo Brevil, 38, as he
built a new house in the blazing heat. His wife had just given birth in
the camp. “When they said they would kill us, I departed with my
family,” he said.
Biene
Jemel, 28, and his two brothers said the same farmers they had worked
for threatened to burn down their home if they did not leave.
All
three men say they were born in the Dominican Republic, though like
many Dominicans of Haitian descent, they have no proof of that aside
from their language skills. Their Spanish is native, far better than
their Creole. None of them speak French. The brothers are among a group
of refugees who are, in essence, stateless, belonging to neither country
but with nowhere else to go.
When
Mr. Jemel fled, his children stayed behind with their mother, who was
able to secure birth certificates for the children and documentation for
herself. It has been six months since he has seen them, and he does not
know when he will again.
“Imagine, it’s impossible for me to see my own kids,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t belong here.”
There
were dozens of others with similar stories, Dominican in every way but
the one that mattered: paperwork. A few nodded in agreement. Many had
begun the process of registering, waiting for months only to find out
they did not have sufficient documentation, no formal birth record.
Few
if any international donors have contributed during this crisis, in
part because it is so much smaller than the earthquake was. And so far,
cholera, which was brought to Haiti for the first time by United Nations
peacekeeping forces, has been much less widespread than it was after
the earthquake. The disease has now spread to the Dominican Republic,
which is dealing with at least three confirmed cases of its own,
officials said.
The
Haitian government’s efforts here are hard to see. The first lady and
prime minister both visited, handing out their aides’ cellphone numbers
to community leaders. When they tried, the residents said, the numbers
did not work.
The camp where the Jemel brothers have settled, Tête à l’Eau, is a testament to the many crosscurrents of history.
Ensconced
in the mountains over the Pedernales River, it was a fully inhabited
village some 30 years ago, and the thatched homes of that era still
exist, as do the corrugated roofs and buildings of stone drawn from the
riverbed.
But
until recently, it was a ghost town. How it came to be filled by
refugees, in many respects, is an echo of how it came to be abandoned
for decades.
During
the 1980s, as tensions with the Dominican Republic flared, cross-border
violence became common. The people of Tête à l’Eau, seized by fear,
eventually fled. Some settled up the mountain, but no one remained.
Then,
this past spring, Haitians began arriving once more, driven by the same
impulse: a flight to safety. Houses long empty were dusted off. The
families living above the valley, some of whom had fled the village
decades before, welcomed the new arrivals.
Borno
Altino, 28, whose relatives fled the valley before he was born and
moved higher into the mountains, sat along the dirt road that runs
through the community, gossiping with residents.
“There’s not a lot of company up there,” he said, smiling.
The
surge of refugees has breathed new life into the areas near Parc Cadeau
2. On Sundays, its church fills with people in their finest garments,
belongings salvaged from past lives. Inside the facility, built from raw
logs and thatched palm, followers fill the dry air with the Gospel, in
French and Creole.
Eugene
Toussaint and his wife moved to the area in 2002, frontier people
determined to establish God’s word on the margins of society. They built
a church and a school.
But
few came. So they closed the school and continued praying with their
tiny flock. And now tragedy has brought them a new one, and enough
children to reopen the school.
“There was no one here back in 2002,” Mr. Toussaint said. “God only knows why we came.”
Other
migrants find refuge outside of the church. They make jokes, play
dominoes. In one camp, residents converted an abandoned tent into a
dance hall.
In
another, Chrismon Gules, who has spent 12 of his 20 years in the
Dominican Republic, has fashioned a guitar from an empty plastic jug, a
hand-carved piece of wood, two wooden tuner pegs and a pair of
corresponding metal wires.
His voice, airy and high-pitched, matches the folksy twang of the guitar. He draws a crowd when he plays.
His tunes of choice: Dominican pop songs.
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