International News

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (APP/AFP) – The European
Union said Friday it was giving an additional 38 million euros in cash aid to Haiti, which is combatting drought and a migration crisis with neighboring Dominican Republic.
The funding included 12.2 million euros for food and drinking water
to more than 400,000 Haitians, an EU news release said.
The El Nino weather phenomenon has devastated crops, with losses of
up to 70 percent in some areas. About 3.6 million Haitians are facing food
insecurity, with 1.3 million among them severely food insecure, according to
the World Food Program.
The EU was also allocating 400,000 euros to assist people in Haiti
who had been deported from the Dominican Republic.
The neighboring country began enforcing an immigration policy in
summer 2015 primarily targeting people of Haitian origin.
Since then, some 87,000 people have been forced across the border
into Haiti, where some have never lived. Among them are more than 1,200
unaccompanied minors, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Some were deported so suddenly that they arrive with only the clothes
on their backs. Thousands are living near the border in makeshift dwellings with poor sanitation.