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Refugees reveal ordeal of years in detention

Refugees described a demoralising experience at the Detention Centre.

Refugees described a demoralising experience at the Detention Centre.

photo

The interior of the Detention Centre.

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

HELD for years without charge at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, refugees yesterday described the facility as a prison that operated with no regard for human rights, international conventions, or the law.

“If you stay in one place and you have no rights, how do you feel?” asked one refugee yesterday as he explained that “you feel like a piece of stone, like an animal, you have no rights. To whom can you say something if nobody hearing you?”

“I was suffering inside, there (was) too much stress, I almost get depressed. Sometimes I had to go to the doctor to get pills for the depression. I don’t like to get too much pills, but sometimes I had to do.”

The refugees, who were released last month, recounted a demoralising experience of subsisting with inadequate food, hygiene and housing while struggling to understand their status with no clear explanation of their fate.

The allegations raise serious questions about the regulatory framework, or lack thereof, guiding operations at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre (CRDC), specifically as it relates to the medical treatment and mental health of detainees.

“In the three years I’ve been there,” one refugee said, “they don’t give me no toothbrush, no toothpaste, no deodorant, and the soap you have to almost have to fight with them to give it to you. The last time they gave soap before I left, one of the immigration ladies she came with a bag of soap and she said with the words ‘these are not for Cubans.’

The refugee continued: “In any place you can find good people and bad people. The majority of (officers) when you ask something to them as simple as that it’s like you’re talking to the wall.

“Every country have their own culture and laws, but if they want to charge me with something they have to talk to me since the beginning and explain what’s going on, not keep me so long like that because I have family too. My family don’t know nothing about me, my family is suffering that too.”

The Tribune was asked not to identify the refugees by legal counsel due to the sensitive nature of their resettlement.

An Eritrean man and three Cuban men, who petitioned the courts over the lawfulness of their detention, were released on July 13.

Their times ranged from two years, to up to four years and four months in the case of the Eritrean.

photo

The interior of the Detention Centre.

In separate cases, the men claimed that they were never questioned by immigration officers during processing, and highlighted their refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR).

The Bahamas acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and its 1967 Protocol, in 1993.

In one case, a refugee said he was not formally processed until there was a change in management at the facility and he was questioned concerning his status.

The refugee said he often begged for deportation in desperation to be free from the facility.

“Every day only sleep, wake up, and sit down that’s it. No TV, no nothing, no (books) nothing. They don’t allow anything even newspapers they don’t allow. So sleep, wake up, sit down, talk with someone, your friends that’s finish.

“Sometimes I say even if I go back (to my home country) it’s better for me. Even if I go back there I was thinking it’s better because they lock me here and don’t tell me anything.”

After his second year in detention, the refugee said he began to agitate to be formally charged and sent to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services.

“I see they take someone to Fox Hill prison, he get two years and serve 18 months and come back, and I’m still in here. So I say even if I go and they say five years, ten years, you do your time and be finished. Somebody in the detention centre now for eight years and he’s still there.”

The refugee added: “So when I see all that I say better that they give me time and let me finish the time. It’s prison (at CRDC) because you can’t do anything, you can’t come outside.”

“It’s jail,” another refugee said, “it’s the same like jail because they take us to Fox Hill. I see the same thing how they count us is how they count in jail. If you stay for long maybe you will get the bed to sleep, but if you first come you have to be sleeping on the floor until when they deport plenty Haitians or plenty Cubans.”

The men were represented by Martin Lundy, of Callenders & Co.

Comments

TalRussell 7 years, 4 months ago

Comrades! In Bahamaland, No One — Including Immigrants — Should Be Locked For Even A Day Up Without Due Process of Law. It's Even Worse Up At The Hellhole Fox Hill Prison,

sealice 7 years, 4 months ago

Well then WTF did you blow smoke up Fweddy's ars when he was in charge but now it's an issue?

killemwitdakno 7 years, 4 months ago

4 years before being processed as a refugee when you're from Eritrea and Cuba? Im going to guess they never heard of the political situation in Eritrea. How'd he manage to get all the way over here?

sheeprunner12 7 years, 4 months ago

Are refugees criminals?????? ........... Refugees should be deported within a month of capture ....... and send their home country the bill for deportation ........... Why are we paying for deportation of other countries' residents who are here illegally????? ....... The UN should step up on that issue ........... If Trump wants Mexico to build a border wall (like Israel), we need to defend our borders by all means necessary ........... Take the bull by the horns !!!!!!!!

Alex_Charles 7 years, 4 months ago

Eritrea is the black North Korea. I have complained about that detention center before and questioned the conditions and laws behind it. We shall see how the new administration will handle that mess.

TheMadHatter 7 years, 4 months ago

It is simply the ongoing curse that black people must suffer - even if put upon them by other blacks. No way to change it. More are born every day to join in the suffering circus.

jus2cents 7 years, 4 months ago

Barbaric. Christian nation my foot! This is not a thing Christians do, dammed hypocrites.

Bahamians forget who they are, and where they came from, the same people who are mistreating the inmates are probably related to many in the center, and I'm talking about their African descendants.

Until this is improved, Every single person living here should bow their head in shame, myself included. This should not be happening in 2017.

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