During a public press briefing on Saturday, Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader announced that he had held a formal high-level discussion with his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele to align coordinated logistical backing and intelligence sharing for upcoming counter-gang operations in Haiti. The bilateral dialogue unfolds against rising regional tensions triggered by the recent disappearance of four Salvadoran citizens on Haitian soil, a development that has amplified cross-border security concerns across the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and neighboring Central American nations.
Abinader emphasized that the Dominican government has rolled out a sweeping escalation of security deployments along its shared border with Haiti, with a particular focus on the country’s southern frontier, the primary corridor where violent Haitian armed gangs are known to operate. The enhanced security footprint includes a surge in frontline military personnel, a fleet of armored tactical vehicles, continuous aerial surveillance via fixed-wing patrol aircraft, and real-time monitoring via unmanned drone systems to track illicit movements near the territorial boundary. The Dominican head of state reiterated that his administration previously took the landmark step of formally classifying all violent Haitian armed gangs as designated terrorist organizations, a legal framework that authorizes security forces to deploy maximum response protocols in the event of any cross-border incursion attempt.
“These groups will be treated exactly as what they are: terrorists, if they dare to approach our sovereign border,” Abinader stated unequivocally during the press appearance, adding that no Haitian gang elements have been recorded approaching the border to date, nor have intelligence assessments identified any immediate plans for incursion. He warned that any armed faction that attempts to breach Dominican territory would face overwhelming, decisive pushback that leaves them “in a very, very bad position.”
While confirming ongoing direct engagement between Dominican security agencies and the regional task force leading counter-gang operations inside Haiti, Abinader declined to release granular details on the full scope of the bilateral cooperation with El Salvador, nor did he disclose specific types or volumes of resources that the Dominican government will allocate to support the missions. He explicitly clarified that no Dominican military troops will be deployed to participate in active ground operations within Haitian national territory, framing all local deployments as defensive measures to safeguard Dominican sovereignty.
When addressing public concerns that the intensifying gang violence in Haiti could spark a new wave of irregular cross-border migration, Abinader confirmed that as of the time of the briefing, border monitoring teams have not detected any early indicators of impending mass displacement toward the Dominican frontier. He added that security agencies will maintain 24/7 real-time tracking of developments inside Haiti, particularly as the multi-national counter-gang task force prepares to launch targeted raids on known terrorist gang strongholds across Haitian territory. The entire set of policy announcements underscores the Dominican Republic’s core governing priority of insulating its national territory from the spillover of Haiti’s ongoing security collapse, while supporting regional partners in efforts to dismantle the violent criminal networks that have destabilized large swathes of the Haitian state in recent years.
Luis Abinader warns Haitian gangs: “If they come near, they will have a very bad time.”
