> Haitian children's cries for mother were ignored during repatriation
>
> By E.A. TORRIERO Sun-Sentinel
> Web-posted: 12:20 a.m. Jan. 18, 2000
>
> PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- When the blue ocean waters turned
> grayer and deeper, and the lights twinkling along the Florida
> coastline grew dimmer and then disappeared, grade-schooler Marc
> Dieubon realized that the U.S. Coast Guard was taking him far away
> from his sick and pregnant mother.
>
> "We were screaming for my mother but nobody listened," said
> Marc, 10. "I don't understand why we were not with her."
>
> Along with his sister, Germanie, 8, Marc and 409 refugees were
> repatriated to Haiti with little questioning from U.S. authorities after a
> Coast Guard cutter intercepted a rickety freighter that ran
> aground two miles off South Florida on New Year's Eve.
>
> Their mother, Yvena Rhinvil, was taken ashore for medical
> treatment and is living with relatives in Lauderdale Lakes while
> awaiting a hearing for political asylum.
>
> The two children are expected to be reunited with their mother this
> week in Florida. But U.S. immigration officials only approved their
> visas after an outcry from Haitians in South Florida who are furious
> over the preferential treatment given to Cuban refugees.
>
> The Dieubon case contrasts with that of Elian Gonzalez, 6, the
> Cuban boy who also sailed for Florida shores on a shaky boat. But
> since he was found floating on an inner tube off the coast of Fort
> Lauderdale, Elian has been welcomed, feted and toasted by Miami's
> Cuban exiles who are fighting to block the boy's return to his father
> in Cuba, ordered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
>
> Elian is in the media limelight daily, but the Dieubon children are
> suffering in obscurity in the poorest nation in the Western
> Hemisphere, relatives and social workers say.
>
> They look at strangers suspiciously, lowering their big brown eyes
> to avoid contact they fear may bring them harm. During an
> interview, the children chewed or wrung their hands with washcloths
> that an aunt says have become their security blankets.
>
> "The kids have been crying like crazy," said Josette Rhinvil,
> Yvena's sister, who cared for them when they returned to Haiti.
> "They don't sleep well. They live in torment."
>
> The Dieubon children give a starkly simple -- but frightening --
> account of their failed trip, one that conflicts with a version offered
> by the Coast Guard. Relatives, human rights activists in Haiti and
> Jordany Joseph, 21, who was also on the boat, confirm their story.
>
> Shortly before Christmas, Yvena Rhinvil and her two children
> boarded an open-air jitney with dozens of other would-be refugees,
> including Joseph, for the long, bumpy journey to Haiti's north coast.
>
> Rhinvil was fleeing poverty, a broken marriage and political
> repression, relatives said. She had been planning to leave for
> months and spent her life's savings for the trip, according to
> relatives in Haiti. Some say the trip cost as much as $5,000 per
> person. The children had no idea where their mother was taking
> them, they said.
>
> The family had little money, but the children were nonetheless
> good students, their aunt said, and they made the best of their
> difficult life.
>
> Marc lived with his Aunt Josette the past four years in
> Port-au-Prince, while Germanie lived with her mother in the
> countryside about 30 miles to the south. "I begged her to leave the
> boy with me, but she said that she was the only one who could
> control him," his aunt said. "I stayed up nights worrying that
> something bad would happen to them."
>
> Only a few hours into the trip, the refugees' jitney slammed into a
> truck. Rhinvil was hurt and briefly hospitalized, but her children were
> unharmed.
>
> "They wanted to go back home," said Joseph, who still has one
> arm and an ankle bandaged from injuries he suffered in the
> accident. "But the mother wanted to continue."
>
> The family boarded the freighter just after Christmas and it left
> from the island of Tortue, off Haiti's northern coast. Pregnant and
> already ailing from the accident, Rhinvil grew more ill at sea, and
> the children were separated from their mother by the smuggling
> captain, who found a place for her to lie down, the children said. "But
> I had to sleep standing up," Marc said. "People were throwing up all
> over the place. It was terrible."
>
> At least a half dozen people jumped overboard in a desperate
> attempt to escape the crowded and worsening conditions, refugees
> said.
>
> After nearly four days, the freighter reached the shores of Miami
> and the children grew excited.
>
> "You could see the lights of the city," Marc said, adding that New
> Year's Eve fireworks celebrations lighted the sky. "I was sure the
> Americans would accept us in Florida."
>
> Coast Guard officials admit they erred in sending the Rhinvil
> children back to Haiti alone. They did not realize the children had
> been separated from their mother until the boy and girl arrived in
> Haiti, the Coast Guard said again Monday.
>
> But Joseph disputed that version of events, saying that the Coast
> Guard knew well before the children arrived in Port-au-Prince of their
> plight.
>
> The Coast Guard lured the Haitians off the smuggler's freighter
> that carried them towards Florida with a promise they would meet
> journalists, attorneys and immigration officials in Miami, the refugee
> said.
>
> To calm the Haitians, the Coast Guard crew fed them, Joseph
> said.
>
> "But once we saw we were heading out to sea and that we had
> been tricked, the children panicked," Joseph said. "They screamed
>
> for their mother. But they were ignored. You couldn't help but hear
> them."
>
> The children didn't learn what happened to their mother until their
> aunt met them on the dock in Port-au-Prince five days later. "They
> had no idea if she was dead or alive," she said.
>
> The Coast Guard has questioned its officers about the incident.
> None reported being approached by the children looking for their
> lost mother.
>
> "Over the last week, we've been discussing this to see if there
> were earlier attempts made" to alert officials about the separation,
> said Coast Guard spokesman Gibran Soto. "So far nothing has come
> to light."
>
> Now, when they speak on the phone, Rhinvil asks her children
> whether they remember her.
>
> They could receive their Haitian travel documents by today.
>
> "It will be better to go by air than boat," Marc said. "I'm never
> getting on boat like that again," referring to the smuggler's
> freighter, "even if it is to go to Florida."
>
> Staff writer Jody Benjamin contributed to this story.