Authorities detain 65 Haitian migrants in Bahamian waters

[struggle4progress]

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Authorities detained 65 illegal migrants from Haiti in Bahamian waters over the weekend, officials said Monday.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolling Bahamian waters caught 48 migrants off the island of Great Inagua in the southern Bahamas on Saturday, authorities said.

A bilateral agreement between the United States and Bahamas allows the U.S. Coast Guard to patrol the country's waters with personnel from the Royal Bahamas Defense Force aboard.

Also on Saturday, a Defense Force patrol boat stopped a 60-foot Haitian sloop carrying 17 undocumented migrants just off Normans Cay in the Exuma chain of islands. <snip>

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0117haitians_detained,0,6634563.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines


Violence Continues In Haiti

<snip> Meanwhile, Barbados’ foreign minister, Dame Billie Miller, has told the United Nations Security Council on Haiti, that while CARICOM remains committed to the people of Haiti, concerns persist over breaches of fundamental rights by a persistent failure to prosecute the "rebels" for their criminal activity. <snip>

http://www.hardbeatnews.com/details3010.htm


Killings of Haitian Street Kids Soar

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti--When I arrived in Haiti in 1995 to help establish a children's radio station, one of the first people I met was a street child, Papouche. He was up in my arms in moments, chatting away in a language I did not yet understand. Later, I learned he was describing his life during the 1991-94 coup. Papouche had managed to escape the rampant attacks on homeless kids that were common then -- and which became rare after a 1994 U.S. invasion restored Jean Bertrand Aristide to power.

But since Aristide's ouster 10 months ago, attacks and killings of street children are back -- in record numbers, according to local human rights workers. <snip>

Aristide was the first Haitian leader to initiate the prosecution of adults who mistreat children. He created laws protecting children who worked in sweatshops. From the national palace, often in collaboration with youth like Papouche, Aristide said that children, even street kids, were worthy of respect. <snip>

According to child welfare workers, the rate of targeted beatings and killings of street children in Haiti has risen some 500 percent since the Feb. 29 ouster of Aristide. <snip>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=7035


Two journalists severely beaten in Haiti
1/15/2005, 10:55 p.m. ET
By AMY BRACKEN
The Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Assailants robbed and severely beat two reporters for Haiti's largest newspaper while the journalists were covering a cleanup effort by U.N. peacekeepers in a slum, their newspaper reported Saturday.

Meanwhile, Argentina's Foreign Minister Rafael Antonio Bielsa promised that his country would stay engaged in helping Haiti overcome its crisis and urged other countries to do the same.

Bielsa said he was concerned about international commitment to helping pull Haiti out of its crisis, saying the tsunami that killed more than 157,000 people across 11 Asian and African countries would likely distract attention from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. <snip>

http://pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/international-4/1105848243194970.xml&storylist=pahomepage