Washington.– Authorities in the US town of Springfield have ordered the evacuation of the town hall due to a bomb threat after the radical right and Donald Trump spread the false news that Haitian migrants eat pets.
“Due to a bomb threat sent today to several agencies in Springfield, City Hall is closed,” reads the official Facebook account of this small town of 60,000 inhabitants located in the state of Ohio.
Since Monday, the city has been the scene of a controversy that falsely claims that Haitian migrants attack dogs and cats to eat them.
The local police have categorically denied this, as have numerous fact-checking media outlets, such as AFP.
But the Republican candidate has repeated it several times since Tuesday, when he mentioned it during the televised debate against his electoral rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The White House denounced a “conspiracy theory with racist roots.”
“These kinds of statements, this kind of misinformation, are dangerous because some people are going to believe it, no matter how absurd and stupid it is, and they might react in a way that could cause injuries,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the executive branch’s National Security Council, said Tuesday.
Lives in danger
“It is the spread of filth that puts lives at risk” in “the communities that are being defamed,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday.
The case is fuelling tension and confusion in Springfield, AFP journalists have noted.
Upon hearing the news of the bomb threat, Haitian migrant Mackenso Roseme left his job at an Amazon warehouse in nearby Dayton and headed to his son’s school.
There he found a sign that said in English, Spanish and Creole that the children had been evacuated to the institute.
“The current situation is really worrying,” he told AFP. “I am a bit stressed. I think something could happen.”
The anti-Haitian accusations in Springfield appear to have stemmed from a simple Facebook post, purportedly from a Springfield resident, quoting a friend of the resident’s daughter, who said her neighbors – presumably Haitians – were trying to eat her cat.
Despite the highly dubious nature of the rumour, Donald Trump and his entourage do not seem willing to retract their claims.
“Ohio is flooded with undocumented migrants, most of them from Haiti, who are taking over cities and towns at a rate never seen before,” the Republican candidate wrote again on his social network Truth on Thursday.
In Springfield, a group of clergy are promoting initiatives to reduce tension.
On Thursday, they held a press conference where they prayed together, holding hands and calling for unity. “Things happened today, threats of violence,” Wes Babian, a former pastor of a local Baptist church, told AFP.
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