WILLEMSTAD - Human Rights Defense Curaçao (HRDC) is sounding the alarm about the conditions in the immigration barracks at the SDKK prison. According to the organization, the situation is even worse than it already was. Crisis migrants, for example, stay in the same cell as criminal suspects.
HRDC has received many complaints in recent days about the abuses in the barracks. The situation has gotten worse after the Barber detention center was closed last month. As a result, suspects of criminal offenses are sitting together with female crisis migrants in the women's section of the barracks.
According to the organization, this is in violation of the human rights treaty. “In contrast to criminal detention, immigration detention is of an administrative nature and for that reason should not be punitive in nature. The current degrading detention conditions in the aliens' barracks are contrary to the administrative nature of aliens detention."
That situation is therefore unsustainable, says HRDC. “Being incarcerated with criminal suspects, including people suspected of serious criminal offenses, - leads to health problems for the already very traumatized crisis migrants. This manifests itself in fear and distrust and psychological problems.”
As a result, several undocumented migrants say they are "about to succumb." They even indicate that they would rather return to Venezuela, the country they just fled because of the bad conditions there.