Chile: Haitian migrants with coronavirus victims of racism

Text by: RFI Follow

The coronavirus knows no borders, no social classes, no religion, we sometimes hear it said since the beginning of the Covid-19 epidemic around the world. However, the disease sometimes arouses discrimination and racism against people diagnosed with the virus. This is what denounces in Chile Haitian migrants and associations that accompany them when a center of contagion has appeared.

Publicity

with our correspondent in Santiago,  J ustine Fontaine :

Six live television channels installed in front of their homes. Here is what the inhabitants of a “city” lived, as the Chileans call it, a small dead end where precarious individual rooms were built rented at the price of gold by an unscrupulous owner.

Thirty three cases of coronavirus have been confirmed there recently, but above all, the tenants are almost all of Haitian origin. "  Residents have been experiencing harassment from neighbors and the media for several weeks, " explains Michelle Voquer, of the Jesuit migrant aid service. Not to mention the structural racism that Afro-descendants often face . "

► Read also : In Chile, racist controversies around the presence of Haitian migrants

At least 50 people have been transferred to hotels, for preventive quarantine or time to recover from the disease. But for fear of finding themselves without income, and also for misunderstanding, some residents refused to go to these homes.

The Jesuit migrant aid service regrets that there is to date no information in Creole from the government concerning the coronavirus epidemic and also concerning the social aid implemented during this economic period difficult.

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Chile
• Haiti
• Immigration

On the same subject

Chile

Chile encourages return of Haitians living in the country

Great report

Chile, a new land of immigration

TRNHAITI

Haiti: 160 Haitians turned back upon arrival in Santiago de Chile