UN warns against talk of Haitian ‘invasion’

Santo Domingo.-  UN Human Development Program (UNDP) representative in the country Lorenzo Jiménez de Luis on Thurs. waned that talk of “peaceful or non-peaceful invasions” stokes unnecessary social alarm because that it’ not statistically justified.

Jimenez said the National Migrants Survey conducted with the support of the UN Population Fund showed that there are around 500,000 immigrants of Haitian origin in the country and “didn’t vary significantly since 2012.”

“So talking about invasions or supposed invasions seems to me to be nothing more than generating unnecessary social alarm that is not statistically justified and is an assessment that lacks statistics,” he said.

He said the UN handles the issue from the Survey, which showed that there were 570,933 immigrants in the Dominican Republic, or 5.6% of the total population in 2017. “The result indicates that of these foreigners, 497,825 were born in Haiti, which represents 87.2% of the total number of immigrants in the country.”

Recently Santiago mayor Abel Martínez expressed deep concern with the issue of illegal Haitian migration and warned that if the Haitian state had the strength of an army it would penetrate the Dominican territory.