Two weeks after an 11-year-old Haitian girl and honor student died during a school outing in northern Dominican Republic, her mother says she still does not know how or why it happened.

Stephora Anne-Mircie Joseph, a student at the Leonardo Da Vinci Institute in Santiago, died on Nov. 14 during a field trip to a private ranch that included a swimming pool in Gurabo. The girl is presumed to have died after drowning, but the circumstances remain murky as the school has failed to provide a detail account of what happened.

The case is prompting growing calls for justice, by both Haitians and Dominicans, while also renewing scrutiny of the treatment of Haitian immigrants and their children in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

“All I want is justice. I want justice because I don’t know what happened to my child. I am trying to understand what happened so I can find justice for her,” Lovelie Raphael Joseph, 43, said in an interview with the Miami Herald.

Raphael Joseph said she dropped her only child off at 7:15 a.m. for what was supposed to be a reward for high-achieving students. At 11:30 a.m., she received a call informing her the girl wasn’t well.

Initially, she was asked which hospital that Stephora, who turned 11 on Nov. 5, should be taken to. A few minutes later, they asked her to come to the ranch, instead. Upon arriving, Raphael Joseph said she saw an ambulance and the police.

When she asked to see her daughter, they said, “No. She is receiving medical attention and I couldn’t see her.” Four hours after her arrival, she was told by a local authority, she said, “Tomorrow go pick her corpse” from the morgue.

In the days since the incident, Raphael Joseph said no one has told her what happened. Nor has she been allowed to see a surveillance video, which she says could explain what happened to her daughter during the hours she and her fellow students were in the pool, and during the four hours she was told to wait.

“I don’t know what happened because they haven’t answered any of my questions,” Raphael Joseph. “This is exactly what I want — to know what happened.”

Stephora, she said, did not know how to swim, a detail the school never inquired about when they sent her a permission slip asking whether the child had permission to enter the water.

“She’s been in the school for 4 years and I felt assured that the school was there to ensure the students’ security because they’ve taken them on field trips before. So I said, ‘Ok, no problem,’ ” Raphael Joseph said. “She was an extraordinary child, superintelligent.”

The Miami Herald reached out to the school, Leonardo Da Vinci Institute, via email. The Dominican newspaper Diario Libre reported that the director of the Ministry of Education in Santiago, Pedro Pablo Marte, stated that Leonardo Da Vinci Institute violated protocols for school outings by failing to meet the basic requirements set by the institution.

“So far we have no record that can prove that the students were taken out of the school with the protocol covered from the center to the district and from the district to the regional,” he is quoted as saying.

Marte ruled out any racial or discriminatory component in the case, despite the victim being a Haitian national, emphasizing that students regardless of nationality receive the same treatment and rights.

But Stephora, who enjoyed modeling, played soccer and wanted to be a doctor, also was the victim of bullying her mother said. Children made fun of her hair and called her names because she was Haitian, her mother said.

A Haitian government source, familiar with the incident, said the incident raises many questions about protocols and negligence on the part of the schools, including the supervision of minors. There were 87 students on the field trip, which had only three adult supervising. They are demanding an impartial and transparent investigation.

Like the girl’s mother, officials have questions about what happened between 7:15 a.m. and when Raphael Joseph finally learned that Stephora was dead. They also have questions about procedures and statements that have been made on the part of school officials.

Stephen Junior Cherenfant, the Haitian Consul General in Santiago, who was in contact with Raphael Joseph 30 minutes after she learned of the tragedy, has put a lawyer to follow the case even though the mother has also hired her own attorney. In a press conference, he asked for the community to remain calm while the investigation is ongoing.

Edwin Paraison, a Haitian rights advocate in the Dominican Republic, says the school not only failed to property supervise the activity, which wasn’t sanctioned, but its treatment of the family after the incident is unacceptable.

“Three adults for 87 students. Where were the adults when this was happening?” he said. “Up to now, the school has not given an explanation to the family, or to the society.”

He noted that the case has unfolded in an environment where anti-Haitian sentiment is strong and deportations of from the Dominican Republic to Haiti number more than 207,000 this year, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration. At the same time, Paraison said, Haitian children are routinely subjected to bullying in school while their Dominican counterparts are the recipients of anti-Haitian messaging.

“What are children hearing? They are being bombarded with a lot of negativity about the presence of Haitians, and what’s happening in Haiti,” he said. “In the relations they have among themselves. They are reproducing what they hear in the media and adults.”

Even still, Paraison said while the case has prompted outrage among Haitians, it has also created a kind of solidarity in Dominican society, which hasn’t always been sympathetic to Haitians. He noted even some public figures, who have had radical views in regard to Haitian immigrants, have spoken out, criticizing the school’s treatment of the mother and the lack of clarity around the tragic death.

Reporting in the Dominican press also has been sympathetic, with some journalists suggesting that the child died after she was held underwater by three boys from an affluent family. Others have suggested she was targeted because of her Haitian heritage.

“Journalists in Santiago believe there are other students implicated in her death because she was a victim of bullying,” Paraison said. “But only the footage from the camera can tell us what exactly happened.”

The fact that authorities refuse to make the video available, has only fueled further suspicions. Raphael Joseph, who has hired a lawyer, said she initially tried to put in a complaint, but wasn’t taken seriously.

Last week, Dominican Attorney General Yeni Berenice Reynoso ordered the strengthening of the investigations after meeting with Raphael Joseph, her lawyers and Haitian diplomatic representatives. In the meeting, Raphael Joseph requested a thorough investigation into the tragedy that unfolded at the Los Caballos estate.

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