PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 29 (IPS) – Haitians, seeking to earn money abroad, have resumed attempts to reach the United States or the Bahamas by boat,and others are clandestinely slipping into neighbouring Dominican Republic, according to aid agencies working here.

The would-be economic migrants have lost faith in the hopes of a better tomorrow which rose one year ago with the return to power of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, they said.

Martha Elysee, 26, who comes from Port-de-Paix, the capital of the northwest region, the poorest area in the country and the region most affected by the phenomenon of the boat-people, is a good example.

She handed over all her savings, 1,000 dollars, to board a boat with 300 others which set sail for Florida on Oct 2. Ten days later ‘’a lack of water forced us to put in at a little island not far from the Bahamas. It was at this moment that the boat’s motor broke down. The owner of the boat fled aboard a canoe,’’ recounted Martha.

The refugees were turned over to the Bahamian police, imprisoned in the Camp Carmichael Road jail in Nassau, then sent back by air to Haiti.

She says unless she finds a job or obtains money to go into business for herself, she will try and try again to leave her country, until she finally succeeds.

Martha’s story is only one among dozens of others collected by the US-based National Coalition for Haitian Refugees (NCHR), an NGO dedicated to the defence of human rights.

‘’We have noted an increase in the number of clandestine voyages over the past few weeks, admitted a representative of the Internatonal Organisation for Migration (IOM)

The National Office of Migration (NOM), a Haitian body charged with responsibility for handling the affairs of immigrants and emigrants, also confirmed the increase in the numbers of would-be migrants. Mireille Philippe, NOM Information Officer, pointed to the hhe economic situation as being the main reason people wanted to leave.

Last week, some 520 boat-people who were trying to reach Florida were turned back by the American Coast Guard. Some 300 others were picked up during the weekend and yet another group of of 580 boat-people and one body were repatriated Wednesday to Port- au-Prince by the Coast Guard.

At least 35 persons were believed drowned off Saint Louis-du- Nord in northwest Haiti when a sailboat heading for the Isle of Tortoises with 47 people on board sank. They were supposed to have been transferred to a boat bound for Florida.

According to an account broadcast by a survivor over New Star Radio, a local station based in Port-de-Paix, seven bodies were picked up. Five of those drowned were the organisers of the voyage and the survivors were arrested by local police.

Besides the dangers associated with their illegal attempts to leave haiti, the boat-people face more unpleastantness with their forced repatriation.

Of the more than 300 would-be emigrants turned back by the Dominican Republic from entering its southeastern region, and the thousands of repatriates from the Bahamas, none have so far received any aid from the Haitian government.

The IOM policy toward unsuccessful boat-people is to intervene on a case-by-case basis. The Organisation does have what it calls ‘’an informal programme’’ going at Anse-a-Pitres, a locality south of the Haitian-Dominican frontier, which gives assistance on application, but only to those boat-people repatriated from the Bahamas.

The National Office of Migration (NOM) created last March by presidential decree does not even have an office to call its own. Instead, it occupies part of a building belonging to the Haitian Ministry of Health. Deprived of any budget, it has no way of meeting the requirements of repatriated boat-people.

‘’Every day for the last fortnight close to 200 demonstrators have come to us violently demanding the aid which President Aristide is supposed to have given our office to administer. They have been throwing petrol bombs and breaking windows, but we received no money to give them,’’ said one NOM official.

A project worth nearly nine million dollars to be spread over a period of one year was prepared by the NOM since October as part of an emergency fund in support of the 17,000 repatriated or internally displaced, but it has yet to approved by the government.

Likewise, the government’s new budget of some one billion dollars has yet to be approved by Parliament.

The approval of this budget, of which around 40 percent is to be financed by international aid, is conditioned by the successful conclusion of negotiations with the international multilateral lending agencies, which were interrupted at the beginning of last month.

The NOM programme among other things provides for the setting up of a village in northeastern Haiti for those boat-people repatriated by the Dominican Republic, the financing of micro- projects in the domain of craft industries, fisheries, agricultural production and commercialisation, and professional technical training and supervision.

According to a study of the dossiers of the repatriated boat- people and those people who were internally displaced as victims of the three-year military dictatorship, 50 percent are small merchants who have lost their capital, and 10 percent are students or persons looking for work. (END/IPS/imc/mk/95)

Origin: Rome/HAITI/ ----

[c] 1995, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved

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