Commander of the Dominican Army says border is secure and calm

Santo Domingo – The General Commander of the Dominican Republic Army (ERD), Major General Carlos Antonio Fernández Onofre, assured yesterday that the border is safe and calm after taking a tour, accompanied by other officers, through the provinces of Independencia and Pedernales.

Fernandez Onofre emphasized that the Armed Forces, the Dominican Army, the Specialized Border Security Corps (Cesfront), and all the security agencies of the State are working together on the border to guarantee that everything is calm and under control in the zone.

He pointed out that the border markets are flowing normally and that there have been no new developments in this regard so far.

“Thank God everything is under control on the border; there have been no new developments,” said the high military chief after finishing his tour of the country’s border communities with neighboring Haiti.

Several senior officers accompanied the ERD commander general during his inspection tour of the border provinces of Pedernales and Independencia.

During his supervisory visit, the high military chief inspected the troops, barracks, and detachments from Barahona, Pedernales, and Duvergé of the Independencia province.

Fernández Onofre traveled in the Bahoruco mountain range along the Dominican Republic’s entire border with Haiti from Pedernales’s border communities to the town of Duvergé.

The purpose of the visit was to observe the general State of the military installations, the conditions of the troops, their performance, and the esprit de corps of each soldier.

The supervisory tour of the border line began at the Fifth Infantry Brigade in the province of Barahona. It covered the military endowments in the province of Pedernales up to Duvergé, Independencia province, where the Commander supervised the conditions in which the military enclosures operate to continue with the improvements in favor of the soldiers.

He pointed out during a meeting that about 20 military posts and detachments located throughout the area were also visited. He stated that “we are verifying and talking to the soldiers we have in those posts, checking their operational readiness and, as always, that they are ready to fulfill our sacred mission, in accordance with the Constitution.”

The posts visited included Santa Elena, El Embalse (Dique), Paso Sena, Aguas Negras, El Banano, El Furgón, Cabeza de Agua, Don Juan, El Canal, and the detachments Los Arroyos, El Aguacate, and Puerto Escondido.

Commander Fernández Onofre was accompanied by the Commander of the Fifth Army Infantry Brigade, Brigadier General Enrique Aguilera Trujillo, a member of the Coordinating Staff; Lieutenant Colonel José Gregorio Hernández, administrator of the Sierra de Bahoruco National Park; personnel from the Ministry of the Environment and SENPA, who toured the mountain range together with a team of technicians and area authorities.

In this sense, an information survey was carried out to join efforts to combat forest fires and illegal acts in this area and to reinforce security in the Sierra de Bahoruco National Park.