The Parsley Massacre: Seventy-five years ago, the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was the scene of a mass slaughter

Haiti neg maron dominican flag olive branch

It earned the name the Parsley Massacre because Dominican soldiers carried a sprig of parsley and would ask people suspected of being Haitian to pronounce the Spanish word for it: "perejil".

Historians estimate that anywhere between 9,000 and 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic on the orders of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Bodies were dumped in the Massacre River, ominously named after an earlier colonial struggle between the Spanish and French.

Related: Rafael Trujillo's grandson Ramfis wants build a wall between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

The killings of 1937 changed the relationship between the two countries on the island of Hispaniola and its effects can still be felt today.

Read more @ bbc.com

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)

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