Twenty more Haitian refugees, including a three year-old baby boy and two pregnant women, yesterday landed in Manchioneal, Portland, pushing the number of refugees that have now come here from that violence-torn country to 30.

Yesterday’s arrival came ahead of today’s meeting by government agencies to draft a plan for handling the expected influx of boat people fleeing the fighting in their homeland.

The meeting will determine, among other things, which ministry will foot the bill for caring for the refugees, which the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has urged regional countries to accept.

Eight armed Haitian cops and two civilians who arrived in Jamaica on Saturday were the first sign that the anticipated influx had begun. They have since officially applied for refugee status.

In addition to the two pregnant women and the baby, yesterday’s group included 13 teenagers – seven of them wearing school uniforms – three adult males and a third woman.

According to the Manchioneal police, they arrived in a multicoloured, 15-foot wooden sail boat, their vessel having run aground at Hector’s River, near the Happy Grove High School at about 2:00 pm. They told police that they left Haiti on Monday, destined for Jamaica where they knew that another batch of Haitians had landed safely three days earlier.

Although some received minor injuries when the boat ran aground, the authorities said the group appeared to be in generally good health.

The tentative plan, last night, was to have them moved to the Port Antonio Salvation Army.

Yesterday, security minister Peter Phillips told reporters that Jamaica will be mobilising its coast guard as part of preparations to deal with any possible flood of Haitians into the island. But he stressed that he would prefer a “fast solution” to Haiti’s worsening political crisis.

A heavy influx of Haitians would put a strain on Jamaica, Phillips said.

“Resources are always a relative thing [and it is] because our resources are limited why we would like to see a solution occur quickly,” Phillips told reporters after speaking at a Life of Jamaica awards function at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.

“It is precisely because we want to minimise the loss of lives why we are making other representations both on our own part, as part of Caricom, and to the wider international community,” added Dr Phillips. “But at the same time no matter how poor you are, if your neighbour is in need you have an obligation.”

Haiti has been hit by demonstrations and violence for several months as political opponents of President Jean-Bertrand have attempted to drive the president out of office, two years ahead of the end of his term.

They claim that Aristide’s election in November 2000, which most people accept represented the will of the people, was flawed.

The Opposition has made Aristide’s departure a condition for national representatives to the electoral commission to draft new rules for national assembly elections which are now due.

The crisis has worsened in recent weeks with armed gangs having taken over several Haitian towns, including the port city of Gonaives. Several former death squad and coup leaders from Haiti’s turbulent recent past have surfaced in Gonaives and elsewhere.

More than 60 people have been killed in the violence since the start of February.

In the face of the deteriorating situation, a package of confidence-building initiatives that Aristide agreed to at a meeting with Caribbean Community leaders in Kingston largely remained unimplemented, for which Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham yesterday criticised the Haitian leader.

Canadian officials will join US, French and Caribbean officials on a visit to Haiti this week, hoping to find ways to implement the initiatives, which include the freeing of detainees, the naming of a new prime minister and government and reforming the police.

As the mission prepared to head for Haiti, the Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States was last night engaged in a special meeting on the crisis. A resolution calling for a political solution to the upheaval was the expected result.