Haiti's government on Wednesday condemned “discriminatory comments” made by U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and other Republicans, who repeated debunked claims that Haitian migrants were eating domestic cats and dogs in the state of Ohio. AFP reported.
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time that compatriots abroad have been victims of disinformation campaigns, stigmatized and dehumanized to serve political electoral interests,” the government said.
“We firmly reject these statements, which violate the dignity of our compatriots and could endanger their lives,” he added.
This week, several Republican figures circulated claims that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating the pets of Springfield, Ohio, accusations that the city manager said were unfounded.
On Tuesday, Trump repeated the false claims in his televised presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris, watched by tens of millions of people in the United States and around the world.
“In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people who came here, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people who live there,” said the former US president.
When ABC News Debate moderator David Muir denied the claim, but Trump insisted he had seen “people on TV saying that their dog had been eaten.”
X owner Elon Musk has also used his social media to help spread the baseless claims, which quickly gained attention in the United States, where two-thirds of households have pets.
