WILLEMSTAD/KRALENDIJK — A group of 10 foreigners – three Pakistani, six Afghans and one Haitian – was refused entry to Bonaire Wednesday afternoon, and was sent back to Ecuador. The Public Prosecutor (OM) of that country had requested the latter. One suspects there is a question of frontier running.
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The Royal Military Police states this in a brief press report. The legal assistance request from the OM in Ecuador had already been forwarded to Bonaire and arrived even before the KLM-aircraft had landed.
In an explanation, the Officer of Justice on Curaçao, Ludmila Vicento says that most of the group didn’t even know which island they had landed on. The ten were refused in conformity with the Entry and Deportation Law, based on the Caribbean-Dutch legislation. "It is allowed to refuse people entry if they do not possess the required means to enter the country." This does not only regard valid travel documents such as visa, but also sufficient means, or if the purpose of the trip to Bonaire is not clear. The local authorities conducted an investigation on-site, and the entry was refused based on the findings and the legal assistance request. "They would have been refused entry to Bonaire even if that legal assistance request had not been made" according to Vicento.
The group subsequently traveled back to Quito at the expense of the airline company. Vicento could not answer the question why the group had not been apprehended when they were at the Quito airport and on the verge of traveling to Bonaire. "Anything could have happened; people could sneak through."
A group of Chinese was apprehended last July, when they had tried to enter Curaçao illegally from Bonaire with sedula’s from compatriots. They had traveled with forged permits from Hong Kong via Schiphol to Bonaire, and wanted to continue their flight to Curaçao with a local aircraft.
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