SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The president of the Dominican Republic warned on Wednesday that his government would take “drastic measures” to protect the country if a UN-backed mission in neighbouring Haiti aimed at gang violence failed.
Luis Abinader did not provide details about the possible measures he would take during his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Gangs in Haiti control 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and have been growing in power ever since. Murder in July 2021 by President Jovenel Moïse. More than 3,600 people have reportedly been killed in the first half of this year, an increase of more than 70 percent compared to the same period last year. The violence has also left nearly 700,000 Haitians homeless In recent years, thousands of people have fled Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.
Abinader thanked Kenya, who leads the mission in Haiti with nearly 400 police officers from the East African country recently joined by nearly two dozen police officers and soldiers from Jamaica and two senior military officers from Belize. Another 300 police officers from Kenya are expected within a month.
However, the number of personnel remains significantly short of the 2,500 pledged by various countries for the mission, and the US government warns of a shortage of resources as it believes the mission will not go ahead. a possible UN peacekeeping mission.
Abinader said the current mission must be fully set up so that free and transparent elections can be held. Haiti has not held elections since 2016, and a Transitional Presidential Council was tasked with holding them by February 2026.
“Almost a year after the elections, the conditions are still not there to do that,” Abinader said, expressing concern about the mission’s future. “We cannot allow the effort that has been made so far to fail. If that were to happen, Haiti’s collapse would be imminent.”
Earlier this year, gangs launched coordinated attacks targeting critical government infrastructure, raiding more than two dozen police stations, opening fire at the main international airport, which forced it to remain closed for almost three monthsand stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, freeing about 4,000 inmates.
The attacks led to the resignation of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the establishment of a Transitional Presidential Council.
“More than three years of instability in our neighboring country has put our own security under great pressure,” Abinader said. “The Dominican state has borne a great responsibility in the Haitian crisis, much more than one would expect of it.”
According to Abinader, 10% of medical appointments last year involved Haitians, and 147,000 of the 200,000 foreign minors in the Dominican education system are of Haitian descent.
“The crisis in Haiti deserves special attention,” he said. “We cannot do it alone.”
Under Abinader, Dominican officials deported more than 170,000 people believed to be Haitians last year, according to government data. But the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration estimates the number is closer to 224,000.
Activists have long criticized Abinader and his government for what they call the continued violation of human rights of Haitians and of people born in the Dominican Republic to parents of Haitian descent.
Abinader has denied the allegations and reiterated on Wednesday that “the Dominican government is deeply committed to the protection of human rights.”
In his speech, he noted that the Dominican Republic’s poverty rate of 19% is the lowest in the country’s history and that the murder rate has dropped to 10 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 13 in 2022.
The chairman of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, Edgard Leblanc Fils, will deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
He and other administration officials did not respond to requests for comment after Abinader’s speech.
Also on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, who recently traveled to Haitimet with other officials at the UN to discuss the mission. They discussed the status of contributions, the timeline of other deployments, and the possibility of a UN peacekeeping mission as an option to secure funds and personnel.
A senior U.S. State Department official said the most urgent priority is extending the mission’s mandate, which expires on Oct. 2.
The official said the U.S. and some of its partners are eager to make changes to the mandate to chart a path “to become a more traditional peacekeeping operation,” but the Russians and Chinese, who supported the original mandate, have expressed concerns about it.
The main benefit of changing the mandate would be to create a more stable funding stream for the mission: “We are optimistic that the extension will happen one way or another,” the official said.
Prime Minister Garry Conille said at the meeting that while the situation in Haiti has improved somewhat, “we are still far from victory.”
He said about 25 percent of Haiti’s police officers have left the country and of those still working, about two are injured and one is killed every week.
“The police are not equipped to deal with this at this time and need further support, assistance and guidance if we are to be successful,” Conille said.
He said he expects elections to be held in Haiti in November, “even though we know we will not have the highest level of security.”
During the meeting, Blinken announced an additional $160 million to help Haitians and U.S. Treasury Department sanctions against former Haitian lawmaker Prophane Victor, accused of supporting and arming gangs. Gang leader Luckson Elan, accused of human rights abuses, was also sanctioned.
No comment could be made on either of them.
In a message to officials gathered to discuss the mission, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the initial deployment was a positive step but warned that gangs were still committing “serious human rights violations” and that funding for the mission remained “grossly inadequate.”
“Improving security is crucial to create the conditions necessary for these elections,” he said, describing the situation in Haiti as “one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world.”
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Matthew Lee, diplomatic editor at the Associated Press in New York, contributed.
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