Foreign Minister denies the installment of Haitian refugee camps
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Álvarez, flatly rejected that there is any type of commitment by the Dominican Republic to accept Haitian refugee camps in several border provinces and attributed that version to the existence of a study by the previous government that lacks legal force.
He said that Haiti is experiencing the most difficult situation in all of history, leading the Haitian government to a condition of survival, but indicated that there will be no refugee camps in Dominican territory. “That is false, of all falsehoods,” Álvarez reacted when Pablo McKinney, on his television program “McKinney”, by Color Vision, asked him if the country had a commitment to accept refugees if the Haitian crisis worsens.
Alvarez stated that both he and President Luis Abinader have repeatedly warned that refugee camps will not be accepted in the Dominican Republic and recalled that it was one of the reasons why the country did not sign the Los Angeles Declaration of the Summit of the Americas, because there was a compromise on migration and refuge that the United States proposed and “we didn’t want it to be misunderstood.”
Álvarez revealed that the United States “questioned us” why the declaration was not signed and “I explained” to the secretary (Antony) Blinken.