As you heard, those Belizeans were placed in quarantine. Up to
yesterday, 428 Belizeans had returned through the phased repatriation
program and they have all gone though or are going through paid
quarantine at hotels.
But, for those who jump the borders - they are placed in quarantine
centres all across the country. These locations are often converted
public facilities so they are insecure. And it's costly to feed all
these persons and keep them locked up. So, the PM announced yesterday
that it is building a centralised quarantine facility:
Rt. Hon Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"We're going to centralize the quarantining of these border jumpers, we
know there are separate facilities ITVET in San Ignacio, ITVET also in
Corozal, various hotels, it's costing government a pretty penny because
you can't oblige to border jumpers to pay for their quarantining. When
you catch them, you quarantine them and at the end they face their
charges in the magistrate's court and if their convicted and they can't
pay they go to jail. Again, at a cost to the state but we are trying to
centralize a sort of quarantine facility, we're using premises not too
far from the capital city of Belmopan, some kind owner is donating the
space to us for as long as the program lasts, we have to put some new
buildings, some temporary buildings there and we have to refurbish the
buildings but it will mean that instead of the security forces who have
to guard the facilities being spread all over the country, that
centralization will lead to some reduction in the cost to government."
997 Belizeans are still queued up for a coordinated return.
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