The idea of creating a new state for Haitians who are willing to return to Africa was embraced today in Addis Ababa, in the opening annual summit of African Union (AU).
The President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, first made the proposal early this month after the island of Haiti was struck by a powerful earthquake.
The Chairman of AU, Jean Ping, told African leaders that the proposal would be discussed during the three-day event in Addis Ababa.
Ping further stated, as reported by Reuters that “It is out of a sense of duty and memory and solidarity that we can further the proposal of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to create in Africa the conditions for the return of Haitians who wish to return after the effect of the disaster that ravaged Haiti”.
Calling on fellow African leaders, the Senegalese president urged them to naturalize any Haitians who sought new nationality. He equally called for a mass adoption programme across the continent for orphans of the quake, believed to have killed as many as 200,000 people.
Completely devastated by natural disaster, the cry from Haiti has forced many people across the world to respond in many ways.
Thousands have crossed borders and continents to help fellow humans in need. Many others are only waiting to defy the orders and bureaucracies preventing them from doing what they feel are right to be done.
At the Haitian capital, a group of 10 Americans who say they are setting up an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic are been held, for trying to take 33 children out from Haitian territory.
“The church group, most of them from Idaho, allegedly lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake,” The Associated Press.
Speaking to The Associated Press today at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, Laura Silsby, the group’s spokeswoman said that ‘they are trying to do the right thing’ in the chaos that has befallen the government.
While the chaos and confusion might seem to have known no end in Haiti, those who are willing to assist are not short in supply.
As for some African leaders, this is the right time to resettle these brothers and sisters of theirs, from across the Atlantic.
A similar thing has happened before in Africa. In the 19th century, some multitudes of free slaves from America were brought and resettled in a West African land or what is today known as Liberia.
Although they have suffered from a brutal civil war like many other countries in Africa, they now have a place of their own in their motherland. And with the newly discovered oil in the country, things might soon turn around for the better.
Ewanfoh Obehi Peter
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