Missing Haitian adults return to Jacob’s Ladder
Still no sign of disabled orphan boy
Published:Sunday | June 23, 2024 | 12:10 AMErica Virtue - Senior Gleaner Writer
As mysteriously as they vanished 13 days prior from Jacob’s Ladder, the Mustard Seed Communities home in St Ann caring for Haitian orphans, 10 Haitian adults returned to the facility on Friday morning.
However, a hydrocephalic orphan boy who underwent surgery and was discharged from the Bustamante Hospital for Children (BHC) in late May, under the care of one of the caregivers who had left, remains missing.
“They (adults) all came back on Friday morning, dropped off at the gates of Jacob’s Ladder from a vehicle. In the evening, somebody from the immigration authorities came and spoke with them, so I don’t know what the next steps are,” Mustard Seed Executive Director Father Garvin Augustine told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday.
“We have not asked them to do anything because they were not caregivers in the first place. But I have to say they are all back, minus the child, and the police have said to us that we should inform them when they return and they will handle it,” he said yesterday.
Augustine said that last Thursday, when news emerged that the Haitians were missing, the police visited the facility, which is more than three kilometres off the main road at Haddon in St Ann.
The secluded home is accessed by a marl road, which was cut by Mustard Seed with the permission of local government officials in St Ann, and the village is built on reclaimed bauxite lands.
59 severely
disabled oRPHANS
In March, it was reported that 59 severely disabled Haitian orphans and 14 adults, who were said to be their caregivers, arrived in the island.
The children, who were under the care of HaitiChildren – a non-profit that caters to abandoned, orphaned and disabled children in Haiti – were received by Mustard Seed Communities and transported to Jacob’s Ladder.
They arrived in the island to get the necessary care in a safe environment in the wake of the upheaval in Haiti, Jamaica’s eastern neighbour.
Later, an additional two adults came, although Mustard Seed said they had been told they would have been two orphans. This brought the total number of Haitians being housed at Jacob’s Ladder under the arrangement to 75.
On Saturday, June 8, ten of the adults left Jacob’s Ladder with their luggage and other personal items for an undisclosed location in the company of a woman, whose name was documented in security records at the gate as “Sheryl Richie”.
The group failed to make contact with Jacob’s Ladder since then, triggering the alarm.
Augustine said that none of the returned adults have explained their absence from the facility and the operators have not questioned them.
“We have been advised by the police not to interrogate them or ask anything. They have made it clear that it is a police matter and it’s to be left to them. When the police came on Thursday, they spoke with those who remained. We don’t know what is the nature of the conversation, but I can say those who have returned are far more cooperative, but they are not caregivers,” the Mustard Seed executive director stressed. “Some have previously said they did not want to continue being associated with the children.”
NO ROTATION
Augustine dismissed suggestions that the Haitians were not missing but were on “week-off rotation”, a claim made by one of the spokespersons for HaitiChildren in a radio interview last Thursday.
“There is no week-on, week-off rotation here. We have shift systems, where people work their shifts. If that was the case, we should have [had] knowledge of their whereabouts when they are not there, especially as their immigration status would be of concern to us. Their immigration status is to be reviewed,” he explained.
The 90-day permission for the initial 14 adults to remain in the island expired last Wednesday.
“The orphan boy was discharged from the hospital into the custody of Christo Romain. He took him to the hospital and he was discharged in his care. We are not getting involved because the Child Protection and Family Service Agency (CPFSA) has told us it is a police matter, and there is nothing more we can do about that, in terms of finding the child … ,” he added.
The CPFSA did not respond to questions from The Sunday Gleaner in time for publication.
Labour Minister Pearnel Charles Jr said that the Haitian adults were not given work permits, but were “admitted on humanitarian grounds”.
He told The Sunday Gleaner that their immigration status is the remit of the Ministry of National Security.
Multiple attempts by The Sunday Gleaner to reach National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang were unsuccessful and questions sent to the ministry were also not answered up to press time.