President Luis Abinader will not be traveling to Glasgow, Scotland to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) from 31 October to 12 November 2021.
“The accentuated deterioration of governance in Haiti demands the continuous monitoring of the political, social and economic situation to guarantee a rapid response by the Dominican authorities to any unforeseen event that puts national security at risk,” states an official press release from the Presidency of the Republic.
The note indicates that President Abinader, as the person in charge of the country’s foreign policy and as the supreme authority of the Armed Forces, must remain in the national territory to take the measures that the circumstances demand.
The Presidency recalls that due to the worsening of the crisis in Haiti, President Abinader has warned Dominicans not to enter Haiti, considering there is no security in that country. Furthermore, the Presidency has ordered the reinforcing of border security and members of the Battalion Cazadores de Montaña de Constanza have been sent to the border with Haiti.
The Presidency says that more patrols are in the border to increase security at roads, highways, mountains and other places that Haitians regularly use for illegal entry.
In addition, surveillance is up in the fuel stations of Dajabón, Montecristi and other border towns to avoid smuggling fuel to Haiti. The fuel the shortage has worsened wth the rising control by criminal gangs. The repeated kidnapping of Dominican truckers in Haiti has aggravated the fuel supply chain in Haiti.
The Presidency reports that shortages and rising fuel prices, together with kidnappings and terror spread by criminal gangs, are provoking violent protests in Haiti and a strike, which has already extended to Ouanaminthe, a border community in Haiti that is 600 meters from the Dominican city of Dajabon.
Meanwhile, the Mayor of Santiago Abel Martinez warned of the “peaceful invasion” and the increasing migration of Haitians, saying the time would come when more Haitians would live here than Dominicans.
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Presidency
El Caribe
29 October 2021