Between February and September of this year, more than 400 Haitians arrived at Tabatinga at Brazil, a city located at 1.105 km of Manaus, the border of the Amazon, of Colombia and of Peru indicated the Father Gonzalo Ignacio, representative of "Pastoral of the Migrants", diocese of Solimões Alto. He specifies that "120 Haitians currently live at the Church of the Holy Spirit in the town of Tabatinga, and 35 others in a residence beside the church while waiting to obtain document of temporary asylum".

"In the first week of February, approximately 250 Haitians found refuge with Tabatinga" declared the Gonzalo Father to make live all this new community, the Haitians are getting help from the population, we negotiate with the famous football teams of Rio de Janeiro in order to obtain Tee-shirts, we organize certain activities as of Bingos or of the biddings to collect funds, we make food collections to help the Haitian brothers. The last "event" that we organized took place last Saturday in the city close to Leticia on the Colombian side and they we collected more than 50 kg of food. In June, the Pastoral one succeeded in collecting more than 80 kg, with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR supervises and coordinates the international action in favor of the protection of the refugees in the world.

Under the coordination of pastoral, the Haitians share the buildings of the church, prepare their own food and are responsible for cleaning for the buildings. During the day, while the women are leave with the children, the men spend their time between Tabatinga and Leticia, a Colombian city on other side of the border. As most other Haitians, Enel left his country via the Dominican Republic, where it took a plane for Lima, capital of Peru. From there, it went by bus to the boat of Pucallpa and Iquitos and Santa Rosa in Peruvian Amazonia and finally it took a small boat for Tabatinga Santa Rosa, through the Solimões river.

"Much of these Haitians, after obtaining the statute of refugee, will be able to go in Manaus and even in the adjoining countries legally and to remake their life", Gonzalo declared.

In an official statement, the federal police of Tabatinga, indicates that in first half of this year it received and transmitted to the National Commission for refugees (CONARE), approximately 130 requests. In fact temporary documents make it possible to the Haitians to be identified as request asylums while waiting for that the process is supplemented.

S/ HaïtiLibre