Jamaicans returning to their birthplace after decades living abroad and being murdered soon after is a burning issue there after a BBC Radio documentary on the topic.
A radio documentary investigated the brutal murder of a British man who returned to Ja-maica to build his dream home in retirement.
A child of the Windrush generation, Delroy Walker, 63, was one of over 200 British nationals to have been killed soon after resettling.
BBC journalist Nesta McGregor travelled to Jamaica with BBC technical operator Steve Walker, Delroy’s brother, to investigate the nature of these murders for Radio 4.
Steve said: “My brother fought for his life…Obviously it was a battle that he was not able to win…And that was what galvanised me. As bleak and as dark as emotional as it was, that was my driving force to try and find the perpetrators.”
Police arrested two men who Delroy had employed to work on his house in 2018. They have been in custody for two years, with no trial date in sight. Acting Deputy Police Commission-er Fitz Bailey told the BBC that they are hampered by a lack of resources. The Jamaica Con-stabulary Force has a shortage of 4,000 police officers.
The Jamaican Government acknowledges that safety of returnees is a problem and have produced an advisory document to assist returnees with integration.
However, the Jamaican Association for the Resettlement of the Returning Residents (JARR) do not believe that this is adequate and said it was “bull****”.
According to JARRR the number of returnees has drastically declined from about 7,000 per year in the 1980s and 1990s to currently around just a few thousand. That could be because less people are leaving Jamaica.
Yet, Percival Latouche, President of JARRR, told the programme it is directly linked to the number of returnees who have been murdered and has told potential returnees that they should stay where they are. He said: “If they didn’t come out, here they’d be alive today.”
He believes the reasons behind the murders are steeped in envy and jealousy and is usually someone known to the victim.
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