THREE BARBADIANS who recently went to St Vincent for Carnival didn't get the vacation they were expecting.

Instead of playing mas' with friends as they had planned, they were deported by Vincentian authorities.

Roger "Fire" Hoyte and Ronald Rollins, both of Lammings Park, St Joseph, and Victor Eversley of Braggs Hill in the same parish, claim they were victims of discrimination after police jailed and then deported them without charging them with any offence.

Hoyte told the SATURDAY SUN he arrived in St Vincent on July 1, and it was while hanging out in the area of Bottom Town with some guys that police searched him and then accused him of going to St Vincent to conduct criminal activities.

"One of them asked me if I was a Bajan and I told him 'Yes'. Then he told another police to don't let me go.

"They asked me why I was there and I told them I was there for Carnival. They said: 'What Carnival? Wunna here to pick pockets and rob people,'" he recalled.

The officers then asked him where he was staying and he told them Edinborough. Hoyte said they took him there but when they realised he didn't have a key to the house, the officers thought he was toying with them and proceeded to beat him up.

"They slapped me in my face and hit me about my body. Then they took me to the station and when someone came with a key, they took me back and searched the house, taking up all my possessions. They took me back to the station and put me in a jail cell with over 20 men.

"One of the police officers said we (Barbadians) were always deporting Vincentians and Guyanese, so they were going to deport me," said Hoyte.

When Hoyte's friends Rollins and Eversley heard the news, they went to the station the next day (Sunday) to visit him, only to be told they too would be deported.

They were immediately placed in jail with Hoyte and the three were put on a plane on July 3, and sent back to Barbados.

Rollins and Eversley returned home with just the clothes on their backs since they were not allowed to return to the house for their luggage.

"I am not a criminal. I don't have no criminal record in Barbados. They didn't even charge us for anything. I want everyone to know how we were treated," vented Hoyte.

The men said this was the first time in three years of attending Vincie Mas' that they had such an encounter and they were not sure if they would ever return.

When contacted in St Vincent, a senior police spokesman told the SATURDAY SUN that the men were deported because they gave false information to immigration authorities about their intended address while on the island.

According to him, the Barbadians not only gave false information on their arrival but, when confronted by police, gave similar false information about their address.