Piticabo fishermen denounce that Navy and Senpa agents destroyed their homes

Piticabo, Pedernales—Fishermen from the Piticabo area in Pedernales asked the authorities to investigate the destruction of their shacks and fishing equipment, allegedly carried out by Navy and Environmental Protection Service (Senpa) agents.

They also claim that they were forcibly evicted when their houses were set on fire.

Because of this situation, they met with Governor Edirda De Oleo Peña, a naval colonel of the Navy, the commander of the naval base of the Southern region, the mayor of Enriquillo, and other authorities.

Luis Montero Pérez, Carlos Manuel Cuello Garo, Salvador Gómez Cuevas, and Onofre Pérez Ortiz, who served as spokespersons, expressed themselves after leaving the hall’s meeting, where the authorities constituted an alleged commission to seek a solution.

When expressing their complaints, the fishermen said there were more than 100. They hoped President Luis Abinader would order an exhaustive investigation, relocate them, build their houses, and return resources to restore their equipment that was destroyed by fire by members of the navy inhumanely and without respite.

They also said that they lost more than 200 goats, birds, and other species that they had raised and that most of them were looted by criminals.

Fisherman Onofre Pérez Ortiz described the experience they have lived as a “genocide,” assuring that they have gone hungry, acting like “the God Saturn who eats his children, unable to raise his voice to cry out for the great losses they left him when they set fire to their houses, and fishing belongings, with which they supported their families.”

Pérez Ortiz, who is part of the Enriquillo Fishermen’s Association, said that they held a meeting in the governor’s office of Pedernales to find a solution. However, they have not seen it so far, so they are appealing to the president.

“We were born and raised in small Piticabo, our parents were 30, 40 and even 50 years old, now by a decision made in a cold room, without taking the collateral damage they have caused, they left us on the streets completely without work,” he reiterated.