GUARDIAN ME­DIA NEWS­ROOM

Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, has joined the list of coun­tries and promi­nent in­di­vid­u­als con­demn­ing the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic's mass de­por­ta­tion of Haitians.

The Do­mini­can gov­ern­ment said last week that it would de­port up to 10,000 Haitians per week.

It said it de­port­ed or repa­tri­at­ed near­ly 11,000 Haitians in the past week alone.

It cit­ed an “ex­cess” of im­mi­grants.

Browne post­ed on his Twit­ter ac­count:

"Deeply con­cerned by re­cent re­ports of mass de­por­ta­tions of per­sons of Hait­ian na­tion­al­i­ty (10,000 per week) from the DR, with as­so­ci­at­ed in­fringe­ments of hu­man dig­ni­ty, at a time when sys­tems in Haiti can least cope with such a rapid in­flux."

CARI­COM is ex­pect­ed to is­sue a state­ment short­ly as well.

Haiti’s For­eign Min­is­ter, Do­minique Dupuy, is in Wash­ing­ton meet­ing with OAS of­fi­cials on the is­sue and oth­er is­sues fac­ing the is­land.

OAS Head Luis Al­ma­gro post­ed on Twit­ter:

"I held a time­ly meet­ing with Haiti's Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Re­li­gious Af­fairs, and Haitians Liv­ing Abroad, Do­minique Dupuy, to dis­cuss the dire hu­man­i­tar­i­an and se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges in Haiti that re­quires ur­gent at­ten­tion from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. One of the core prin­ci­ples of the OAS is to pro­mote good neigh­bourli­ness and re­spect for hu­man rights of all with­out dis­tinc­tion as to race, sex, creed or na­tion­al­i­ty. We must not de­part from these de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in or­der to main­tain a peace­ful and sta­ble re­gion."

This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry.