WILLEMSTAD - Curaçao must stop the long-term detention of Venezuelan migrants who hope to be able to stay on the island based on human rights treaties. That is what MPs from the Kingdom Relations Committee said after a visit to the foreigners’ barracks of the SDKK prison in Curaçao.

There they had conversations with some Venezuelan prisoners. Three Venezuelan women detained in the women's section of the prison wanted to hand over a letter to the Dutch MPs but did not succeed.

In total, eight Venezuelans have been imprisoned for more than seven months in the detention center of the SDKK prison.

The MPs involved understand the detention of Venezuelans for a short period and with the prospect of deportation, for a maximum of fourteen days. But in those cases where the stay in the barracks will take longer - certainly if this exceeds a period of two months - they can no longer speak of an acceptable situation, the Dutch MPs say.

The medical, sanitary and privacy conditions are, according to the politicians, so limited that the situation is unworthy of migrants who have been there for longer than two months. That is why they are asking the Minister of Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops to raise this during the upcoming Judicial Four-Country Consultation (with Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten) and to call on Curaçao to quickly improve the procedure for handling Venezuelan refugees. The meeting starts on Wednesday in Willemstad.