Twenty Jamaicans were sent out of Barbados during the first half of this year, trailing only the perennially 'unwanted' Guyanese - 24 of whom were sent home - as deportees from the Eastern Caribbean island.

The expelled Jamaicans represented just over 29 per cent of the 68 deportees, but the offences for which they were deported were not immediately available.

When he announced yesterday the level of deportations for January to June this year, the Rev. Joseph Atherley, State Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, did not specify the offences for which nationals were sent back. He instead provided general data.

Thirty-one, or approximately 45 per cent of the deportees, were chucked out, Rev. Atherley said, for drug-related offences, while 18 of them, or 26.4 per cent, breached Barbados' immigration laws.

Eight - 12 per cent - of the deportees were accused of prostitution.

The fact that the highest proportion of the deportees were Guyanese was not surprising, given the sour history of immigration relations between Bridgetown and Georgetown.

Two years ago, in the face of complaints by Guyanese of discrimination by Barbadian immigration officers, the country's Prime Minister Owen Arthur had to intervene to demand fair treatment for all. The matter was even discussed between Arthur and the Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo at the regional level.

PM's backing

Even before that incident, at the height of an anti-Guyanese campaign in Barbados, ostensibly because of illegal immigration, Arthur had to stress the importance of Guyanese artisans to the Barbadian economy and to highlight that he had engaged Guyanese in the rebuilding of his home.

The Guyanese and Jamaicans apart, the other nationals were Colombians, seven; Vincentians, St. Lucians and Syrians, two each; and one each from the United States, Britain, French Guiana, Portugal, Brazil, Nigeria, Senegal and Ecuador.

Rev. Atherley said the Barbadian government would not tolerate foreigners breaching the country's immigration laws and Barbadians who encouraged them to flout the rules.