Former Dominican Chancellor Miguel Vargas Maldonado, also President of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), said in a statement this week that the insecurity situation in Haiti is rapidly worsening and that "the power vacuum has placed this country on the edge of civil war."

He said the latest reports that of armed clashes between gangs, inefficiency of the police in containing the wave of violence, indiscriminate and daily kidnappings, widespread criminal extortion, attacks on public offices and buildings and acts of vandalism, are of great concern:

"To the institutional chaos and the deterioration of public order are added the indifference of the international community, the shortage of basic products and fuels, an inflation approaching 30%, the growing increase in illegal immigration and extreme poverty."

He added that what is happening in Haiti threatens the security of the Dominican Republic and that "it is urgent to adopt measures accordingly in order to preserve the rule of law and guarantee peace for Dominican citizens."

Deploring "[...] long before the climate of violence in Haiti worsened, we asked, in vain, for greater attention from the Government and the international community to this problem. Even the Dominican request to redouble United Nations peacekeeping efforts and the warnings that we issued on the weakening of the political and institutional environment, on the occasion of our joining the Security Council until December 2020, remained unanswered [...]" forcing the Dominican Republic to militarily reinforce its borders with Haiti. https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35147-haiti-flash-the-international-ignores-haiti-and-the-dr-militarily-strengthens-its-border.html

SL/ iciHaiti