The Dominican Republic has started building a border wall with Haiti, the country with which it shares the island of Hispaniola.
On Sunday, Luis Abinader, President of the Dominican Republic, attended the inauguration ceremony to construct the smart border fence, which will separate the Dominican Republic from its neighbor.
He said the gate “will benefit the Dominican Republic and Haiti through the regulation of commercial and migratory cross-border flows as well as address the issues of smuggling, drug trafficking, and security.”
While pushing the button that began the pouring of concrete into the foundations of the first phase of the wall, he shared that “the country will fight the different forms of organized crime based at the border between both countries,” thus highlighting the benefit for the two nations.
The gate will be constructed in phases starting Sunday, February 20, 2022. The structure will be 54 kilometers of reinforced concrete and metallic structure with 70 watchtowers and 41 access gates for patrolling. It will also feature 54 kilometers stretch of roads for surveillance and maintenance on both sides. The concrete wall will be topped by a metal mesh, 3.9 meters high, and fiber optics for communications, movement sensors, cameras, radars, and drones.
“This first part will be erected in the populated and sensitive areas of the borderline, and construction will begin simultaneously on all six fronts located in the five border provinces. It will be completed in nine months,” said the president.
He added that once the construction of the first stage starts in the first half of this year, they will launch the tender for the technological component of the entire border fence. In the second half of 2022, the second stage will be tendered, covering another 110 kilometers.
The gate will also feature an advanced biometric control system designed by Germany’s Dermalog, a world leader in the sector. Using the ABIS system as a tool, the security features combine fingerprints with photographs and other demographic data, including names, and addresses, to identify people with a low margin of error.
This development comes amid a worsening political and economic situation in Haiti in the aftermath of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last July. Amid a rise in gang violence and political deadlock over the holding of elections, many Haitians have been crossing the border without documentation in search of work in agriculture or the construction industry.
The exodus of Haitians dates back to 2010 when Haiti was struck with a massive 7.2 earthquake that killed an estimated 316,000 people and devastated much of the country.
About 500,000 Haitians and tens of thousands of their descendants live in the Dominican Republic, its Spanish-speaking neighbor of about 11 million people, according to the most recent immigration survey conducted in 2018.
President Abinader explained that the Dominican people have always shown solidarity with the Haitian people. However, the country cannot take charge of Haiti’s political and economic crisis nor solve the rest of its problems. He expressed hope that Haiti would swiftly recover control of its territories and achieve the stability necessary to hold general elections reasonably.
“With this act, we fulfill the sacred duty to defend the national security of our country and combat the threats that concern and affect us today.”
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