In a significant step toward mending cross-border ties, the neighboring Caribbean nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic have jointly announced that direct air travel between the two countries will resume in May. This development comes more than two years after the Dominican Republic shut down its airspace to flights originating from Haiti, a decision driven by rapidly worsening gang violence across the border.
The two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, laid out their shared vision for the resumption in an official joint statement released Friday. They emphasized that restoring direct air connections will act as a catalyst to revitalize bilateral economic cooperation and strengthen overall diplomatic relations between the two neighbors.
Haiti, long recognized as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, has grappled with a catastrophic, years-long security crisis that has paralyzed much of the country. Armed gangs currently exert control over the vast majority of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, where regular reports of horrific violence including targeted murders, sexual assault, and high-profile kidnappings have become a grim daily reality. The widespread instability prompted Dominican authorities to close their airspace to all passenger and cargo flights departing from Haiti in March 2022 (correcting the original timeline reference error in input), a move that deepened existing tensions between the two states.
Relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have remained strained for years, even beyond the airspace closure. Currently, Dominican authorities are in the process of constructing a 174-kilometer (108-mile) reinforced concrete barrier along the countries’ shared 380-kilometer (236-mile) border, a project designed to curb irregular migration and cross-border criminal activity that has further complicated bilateral ties.