(26 Feb 2015) About 10,000 people marched in Haiti's capital on Wednesday to protest what they say is chronic mistreatment of their countrymen in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
The march came about two weeks after a shoe shiner of Haitian descent was found hanging from a tree in a square in the Dominican city of Santiago.
One protester climbed up on the roof of the Dominican consulate and ripped down a Dominican flag, which was later burned by the cheering crowd.
Haitians believe the shoe shiner Henry Claude Jean was a victim of racist violence, but Dominican investigators say it appears he was killed by other Haitians.
No one knows exactly how many Haitian migrants live in the Dominican Republic, but the United Nations has estimated there may be as many as 500,000.
Comparatively much wealthier than its neighbour, the Dominican Republic has long been a magnet for low-wage workers from Haiti but it has been seeking to limit unregulated, cross-border traffic in recent years.
In 2013, the Dominican Supreme Court ruled that people born in the country to non-citizens were not automatically entitled to citizenship.
It was a retroactive ruling that went back to 1929 and left many people who had thought of themselves as Dominican in legal limbo.
Amid international pressure, the Dominican government decided that people affected by the ruling could apply for citizenship after they obtained birth certificates by a 1 February deadline.
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