BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) \u2014 An increase in the number of Haitian immigrants entering Brazil has led the government of the Amazon state of Acre to decree a state of “social emergency.”<\/p>\n
Governor Tiao Viana decreed a state of emergency on Tuesday to get the federal government to help curb the influx of immigrants and provide aid to those already inside Brazil, the government’s website said.<\/p>\n
“It is the formal recognition of the seriousness of the situation,” Viana said on signing the decree. “It is the recognition of our incapacity to solve this problem alone and of our need for more support.”<\/p>\n
Since the 2010 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, more than 4,000 Haitians have entered Acre, said a government statement.<\/p>\n
It added that in the past three years Acre’s state government has provided $1.5 million in humanitarian aid for the Haitians while the federal government has put up $350,000.<\/p>\n
Acre’s Justice and Human Rights Secretary, Nilson Mourao said that 1,100 immigrants entered the state in the past few days.<\/p>\n
He said that besides Haitians, immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Senegal have also entered Brazil through Acre.<\/p>\n
“Nowhere else in the world do illegal immigrants receive the kind of treatment we offer,” Mourao said. “But I fear it will encourage the practice of human trafficking.”<\/p>\n
The governor’s brother Sen. Gorge Viana said Wednesday that Brazil’s National Refugee Committee and the United Nations should send missions to Acre to deal with what he said was a “very serious situation.”<\/p>\n