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Seventeen Haitians packed on to return flight yesterday
– GPF says they failed to satisfy immigration requirements
The Eugene Correia International Airport where the Haitians were reportedly held and packed on a return flight.
Seventeen out of 61 Haitians who had arrived in Guyana recently, were yesterday packed on a return flight and sent back to their port of embarkation (Barbados).
According to information received, the return flight departed the Eugene Correia International Airport at Ogle, East Coast Demerara, sometime after 15:00 hrs. Attorney-at-law, Darren Wade, was at the airport when they left. He recalled that they were rounded up and taken away to board a Caribbean Airlines Flight (CAL).
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has stated that the 17 Haitians were sent back because they had failed to satisfy immigration requirements. This media house had asked the Force to specify what immigration requirements they failed to satisfy and whether or not the group included men, women and children, but up to press time GPF had failed to respond.
Kaieteur News had received a tip-off earlier yesterday that some Haitians were not being allowed to enter the country and were detained at the Ogle Airport in inhumane conditions. This media house visited the airport but was unable to locate them; however, later in the day Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, informed media operatives that the Haitians were indeed at the airport awaiting their return flight. He added too, that his ministry had been working along with Ogle Airport to provide “additional temporary accommodation for them.”
Wade had told Kaieteur News that they were kept overnight and he had a chance to meet with them. The lawyer claimed that he was made to understand that they were no beds available for them to sleep at the airport and that a “good Samaritan” had to assist by buying five mattresses.
GPF stated, that the Haitians were part of a group of 61 who had arrived on CAL flights between Sunday May 23 and Monday May 24.
Kaieteur News learnt that the Haitians had boarded the flights to Guyana from Barbados. A representative from CAL explained that his company does not operate direct flights from Haiti to Guyana. The representative continued that flights would only leave from Grantley Adams International Airport to Ogle.
Late last year, 26 Haitians – men, women and children – were detained at Government facilities for illegal entry. They were charged in the Magistrate Court and it was later ordered by Principal Magistrate, Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, that they be deported.
However, Wade had decided to represent them and had filed an application in the High Court to have the deportation order quashed. In January 2021, Chief Justice, Roxane George-Wiltshire, ruled in favour of Wade and the order was quashed. The Haitians were subsequently released from custody but they had vanished since then.
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