Baghdad – IA
About 70 Haitian migrants returned by air to their country from Mexico, authorities announced, in the first voluntary repatriation flight as part of an agreement aimed at alleviating a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Mexico’s National Migration Institute said in a statement that the returned Haitians, including 13 children, boarded a flight from the city of Villahermosa in the southeast of the country to Port-au-Prince.
The trip comes in the wake of an agreement between the two countries to “begin the voluntary repatriation of migrants” from Mexico.
Tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, many of them Haitians who have been residing in South America, have arrived in Mexico in the past few weeks in hopes of entering the United States.
After being turned back from the US border, many seek to remain refugees in Mexico rather than return to their country, which is plagued by poverty.
Haitian migrants left informal camps on both sides of the US-Mexico border on Friday after Washington began deportation flights from Texas.
Mexico’s Migrant Commission is studying asylum applications for about 13,000 people from Haiti, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced to lawmakers on Tuesday.
But many Haitians who arrive cannot apply for asylum in Mexico because they have been granted refugee status in other countries, he said.
2023-12-17 08:24:24