Carib Scope

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  • ‘I just wept, I really felt the pain’, says mother

    ‘I just wept, I really felt the pain’, says mother

    For Lovan Miller-Christie, a resident of Andros, the pain of unspeakable loss never truly fades. Nearly two years ago, a single car accident claimed the lives of all three of her sons, and the recent deadly collision on Shirley Street that left five teenagers dead has ripped open the still-raw grief she carries every day.

    The June 28 crash, which occurred when eight people were crammed into a single passenger vehicle, shook The Bahamas to its core. Dead at the scene were Bertrica Brown, 18, Diamond Stubbs, 17, Stania Webb, 19, Evalena Johnson, 19, and 19-year-old Keno Gordon Jr. Two other survivors, 21-year-olds Bianca Mathurin and Shawn Thurston, remain hospitalized as they work to recover from their injuries. For Miller-Christie, news of the dead teens immediately transported her back to September 2, 2024, the day her own world collapsed. That morning, her three sons — 24-year-old Philip McCarron Christie, 23-year-old Philip D’Caprio Christie, and 20-year-old D’Angelo Christie — were killed in a traffic accident in New Providence, shortly after the family had relocated from their quiet Andros hometown to the island to let the young men chase better opportunities.

    “I cried for those children,” Miller-Christie shared in an interview with Tribune media this week. “They just graduated, they were intelligent, and one was getting ready to go to college. I was just looking at their story and I thought, ‘oh my God.’ I just wept, I really felt the pain.” In the wake of the Shirley Street crash, hundreds of messages flooded Miller-Christie’s phone from people across the country who understood immediately that the new tragedy would awaken her deepest trauma. This interview marks the first time Miller-Christie has spoken publicly about her continued grief since her sons’ deaths, when the devastating loss captured national attention and broke hearts across The Bahamas.

    Today, Miller-Christie says she holds profound empathy for the families now navigating the same unthinkable pain she lives with every day. Though coping with the loss of her three boys remains a daily struggle, she says her religious faith has been the only thing that has helped her keep going. “I’m still managing,” she said.

    While she hopes to eventually connect with the grieving families to offer her support, Miller-Christie understands that fresh grief requires space. She knows from personal experience that in the immediate aftermath of loss, well-meaning comfort often falls on deaf ears. “I know when I lost my sons, people were reaching out to me, but I wasn’t hearing them, you know,” she explained. “They were talking to me, but I was in another space. I think that when people go through loss, you can send them your condolences and tell them you care, but you have to give them time to reconcile with that loss and that pain.”

    Drawing from her own long journey through grief, Miller-Christie is now calling for systemic change to support other bereaved people across the nation. She says The Bahamas lacks a dedicated organization where people navigating the sudden loss of loved ones can access moral encouragement, professional counseling, and personalized guidance from others who have survived similar tragedies. “We could come together, share and explain our pain,” she said. “And share what it is that we use to help us manage our grief, pain, and loss, and to come out of bed with sanity.”

  • Father says Diamond would want him to forgive car crash driver

    Father says Diamond would want him to forgive car crash driver

    On June 28, a devastating car crash on Shirley Street in Nassau left five teenagers dead and shocked the entire Bahamas nation. It was the deadliest road accident the country has seen in more than 20 years, and for the grieving families left behind, the weeks following the tragedy have been marked by raw pain, quiet reflection, and an extraordinary act of grace.

    Damian Stubbs, the 51-year-old father of 17-year-old victim Diamond Stubbs, has opened up about his journey from blinding rage to forgiveness, revealing he now holds no ill will toward 19-year-old Marcus Thacker Jr., the driver charged with five counts of vehicular manslaughter in connection with the crash.

    In the immediate aftermath of the collision, when the 2006 Mazda sedan carrying eight young people crashed into a tree at the Shirley Street and Church Street intersection, Stubbs joined other grieving relatives in calling for full accountability for the deaths of the five teens. But as weeks passed and the initial shock of his loss softened into sustained grief, Stubbs said his perspective shifted.

    “I was really angry at first, that anger consumed me in those first terrible days,” Stubbs shared in an interview. “But as time goes by, I’m starting to now feel sorry for him. It could have been my daughter behind the wheel. All of those kids were just together, no matter where they were coming from or where they were going.”

    Stubbs added that his daughter, if she had survived the crash, would have been the first to urge forgiveness for Thacker. “If my daughter had lived after all of this, she would still say, ‘Daddy, we have to forgive Marcus.’ If I got the chance to speak to him face to face, I would tell him straight out that I forgive him. I would still have questions I need to ask, about what happened that day, but the anger is gone.”

    Along with Diamond Stubbs, the crash claimed the lives of 17-year-old Stania Webb, 19-year-old Keno Gordon Jr., 18-year-old Bertrica Brown, and 19-year-old Evalena Johnson. Two other passengers, Bianca Mathurin and 21-year-old Shawn Thurston, remain in hospital recovering from serious injuries sustained in the collision.

    The tragedy is deeply interwoven with the close-knit community bonds of the group: all five victims and Thacker grew up together on Cat Island, a quiet outer island of the Bahamas, with connections that crossed family lines. Stubbs explained that Thacker’s father was known to his family as “uncle” to Diamond, and the teen girls in the group saw Thacker as an older brother. Stubbs added that he cannot sustain anger toward Thacker, even as he still grapples with unanswerable questions about whether speeding contributed to the crash.

    Critics have questioned why eight passengers crammed into a single sedan for the trip, but Stubbs pushed back against that criticism, noting the tight bonds between the young people meant they would never agree to split into separate vehicles. “We train our children not to leave each other behind,” he said. “That’s how these kids were raised, that’s how they lived.”

    As families make final arrangements to lay their loved ones to rest, Stania Webb’s father Stanley Webb has launched work to build a shared mausoleum for Stania and Diamond, who were lifelong best friends, so they can be buried side by side on Cat Island. Local volunteers and Webb’s two older sons have pitched in to complete the work, while Stubbs has remained in New Providence to coordinate logistical details for the joint funeral.

    Stubbs said the outpouring of community support for the grieving families has been overwhelming, a small light in the darkest period of his life. “The hardest part of this whole thing has been sitting in the funeral home, trying to pick out a casket, listening to people talk about what will look good for our kids,” he said. “I still can’t bring myself to talk about dressing my daughter for burial. That’s too much.”

    Stubbs’ wife Natalie has been completely shattered by the loss of her daughter, he said, withdrawing from friends and family and turning off her phone in the days after the crash, though she has begun to show small signs of emotional progress in recent days. The couple have three other children: 23-year-old Damian Jr., 16-year-old Dominic, and 11-year-old Trinity, whom Stubbs said has been the glue holding the fractured family together through their grief.

    For Stubbs, Diamond was far more than just a daughter: she was a close confidant who stood by him through hard times, and the natural peacekeeper who kept their family connected. Just two weeks before the crash, Diamond graduated from Old Bight High School as valedictorian and head girl, a high-achieving student who had already earned five college scholarships and planned to attend Langston University in Oklahoma to study criminal justice.

    Teachers and family members remember Diamond as an intelligent, generous young woman who was active in her church, school and local community, always looking for ways to help people around her. One of Stubbs’ most cherished final memories of his daughter is a video of her singing “Goodness of God” to him during a Father’s Day service at their church just weeks before the crash.

    “I didn’t know that was going to be the last song,” Stubbs said quietly.

  • Bimini blaze leaves twenty homeless

    Bimini blaze leaves twenty homeless

    On a Wednesday morning in Bimini, the Bahamas, a devastating out-of-control fire tore through multiple residential structures in Bailey Town, forcing local residents to step in as makeshift first responders – forming human bucket brigades along the shoreline and climbing onto rooftops to slow the blaze’s spread. The incident has once again brought long-simmering public anger over the island’s chronically insufficient firefighting resources to a boil.

    Local law enforcement confirmed they received the first alert of the blaze along Kings Highway shortly after 6 a.m., arriving to find a two-story mixed concrete-and-wood building, home to four separate households, completely engulfed in flames. Official updates from the Ministry of Social Services later confirmed at least five homes were damaged or destroyed in the fire, with Island Administrator Evak Arthur projecting that close to 20 local residents have been displaced by the disaster.

    Randy Rolle, Member of Parliament for Bimini and the Berry Islands, confirmed that one to two people suffered smoke inhalation and required airlifting to New Providence for medical observation. Fortunately, there have been no reports of fatalities or critical, life-threatening injuries.

    Multiple residents told reporters that only one fire truck – a unit stationed at the local airport – was available to respond to the emergency, and it arrived long after local residents had already begun battling the blaze on their own. Naria Rolle, the resident whose home the fire started in, described waking around 5 a.m. to the sound of crackling near her seven-month pregnant daughter’s bed, tracing the spark to a faulty air conditioning unit plug.

    “I turned the breaker off immediately and I grabbed the fire extinguisher, but the pin would not pull,” Ms Rolle explained. She and her high-risk pregnant daughter attempted to smother the growing flames before fleeing the property with nothing but the clothes they wore. Ms Rolle, a single parent who built the home herself at age 23 and carries no property insurance, said she is left grappling with overwhelming loss after escaping unharmed but losing every possession she owned.

    “It’s still saddening, to lose everything,” she said. “People might say, you have your life. Yeah, you have your life, but when you struggle most of your life, when you get to a place where you feel comfortable with your life and for that to just be yanked away from you, just in the blink of an eye? I’m a single parent, and I have a daughter in college. It’s just in an instant. And yes, you could rebuild, but the scars still there, the memories that you lose, it’s still there. That’s your home.” Ms Rolle added that displaced households are now in urgent need of financial support, clothing, and permanent emergency housing.

    Footage live-streamed from the fire scene captured the scale of the community-led response, showing residents hauling bucket after bucket of seawater from the shore to douse the blaze as it threatened to spread to adjacent homes, while local men climbed to nearby rooftops to beat back advancing flames. One resident questioned during the stream whether much of the damage could have been avoided if properly functioning, dedicated firefighting equipment had been available immediately.

    “I don’t know how many signs we need to get a working fire truck in Bimini, Bahamas, but the signs are everywhere,” the resident said. “Without a fire truck, it’s very hard to stop this raging fire. This is hard for Bimini.”

    Police confirmed the fire was eventually brought under control entirely through volunteer efforts, though the affected structures suffered extensive irreparable damage. Bahamas Power and Light reported that power was cut to the Bailey Town and Canton Line areas after the blaze damaged low-voltage circuits and power lines, though full service has since been restored.

    Wednesday’s fire is not an isolated incident: it echoes a similar devastating blaze in March 2023 that destroyed multiple structures and left 11 Bimini families homeless. On that occasion, residents also reported having to fight the fire with buckets and hoses, and formally appealed to the national government to station a dedicated working fire truck on the island.

    Cecil Dames, one of the local residents who helped fight Wednesday’s blaze, argued that Bimini needs a more practical, context-appropriate solution than a single conventional fire truck, which is difficult to maintain in the island’s harsh tropical coastal environment. “We need action as in we need some kind of pumps and hoses,” Dames explained. “He said strategically placed pumps and hoses capable of drawing seawater would allow residents to respond faster when fires break out. While residents ultimately contained the fire themselves, Dames noted that this is not an acceptable outcome in 2026.

    “The airport fire truck eventually arrived and helped, but came late,” he said. “It did help, but it ran out of water and had to leave and come back.”

    Alexia Duncombe, whose family members joined the firefighting effort, said the island remains trapped in the same dangerous gap in emergency services that it faced after the 2023 blaze, with no meaningful action taken to address the crisis in the intervening years.

    In response to the disaster, Attorney General and acting National Security Minister Wayne Munroe acknowledged that small islands like Bimini do need access to pumps capable of drawing and distributing saltwater for fire suppression. He noted that the national government has plans to acquire 20 new fire trucks, but manufacturing these vehicles can take between 12 and 18 months. Munroe also emphasized the importance of household fire preparedness, pointing to Ms Rolle’s non-functional fire extinguisher as a key example: “If she could have gotten it to work, the fire would not have spread and would have been put out,” he said, adding that residents must ensure all household fire safety equipment is in working order.

    Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis released a statement expressing his deepest sympathy for all households affected by the blaze, and confirmed he has directed all available government resources to be mobilized to support displaced residents. The Ministry of Social Services has already deployed an on-the-ground team to deliver immediate emergency aid, including temporary shelter, food vouchers, mental health counselling, clothing, and other essential support services. Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper and Social Services Minister Barbara Cartwright have also travelled to Bimini to conduct on-site damage assessments, meet with affected residents, and coordinate ongoing relief efforts.

  • Record sargassum invasion threatens Punta Cana tourism

    Record sargassum invasion threatens Punta Cana tourism

    The Caribbean’s top tourist destinations of Punta Cana and surrounding coastal regions are facing a mounting environmental and economic crisis as unprecedented volumes of sargassum, a large brown macroalgae, continue to wash ashore across the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. What began as a periodic marine nuisance has grown into a systemic problem, with new data from the University of South Florida showing the scale of this year’s invasion is outpacing every previous recorded season. Between the start of January and the end of June this year, the greater Caribbean region accumulated roughly 9 million metric tons of sargassum. That figure marks a new all-time high for the period, jumping 8.4% above the 8.3 million metric tons recorded in the same six-month window last year, and dwarfs the 1.2 million metric tons observed just two years prior in 2024.

    For the $10-billion-plus tourism sector that forms the backbone of Punta Cana’s economy, the influx of rotting seaweed is already delivering tangible harm. Tourists have complained about thick brown mats covering once-pristine white sand, while the pungent odor released by decomposing algae pushes visitors to avoid affected stretches of coast entirely. Large resort chains and private beachfront businesses have poured thousands of dollars per day into cleanup operations, deploying heavy machinery and hiring extra manual crews to clear their private beach segments to protect the visitor experience. But many public coastal access points lack the budget, labor, and equipment needed to keep up with the nonstop inflow, leaving community-owned public beaches blanketed and unusable for both tourists and local residents.
    The damage extends far beyond lost tourism revenue, which accounts for approximately 19% of the Dominican Republic’s total annual gross domestic product. The thick mats of sargassum block sunlight from reaching coral reefs and seagrass beds, smothering critical marine habitats and throwing the region’s coastal ecosystem out of balance. For local small-scale fishing operations, the algae tangles boat propellers and clogs fishing nets, cutting into daily catches and threatening the livelihoods of artisanal fishing communities that depend on the sea for income. Even for coastal residents who do not work in tourism or fishing, the constant stench from decomposing sargassum lowers quality of life in impacted coastal neighborhoods.

    Despite the widespread near-term challenges, marine policy and ecology experts note that the massive sargassum invasion could unlock unexpected long-term economic opportunities. Researchers and entrepreneurs across the Caribbean have begun exploring viable commercial uses for the harvested algae, including converting it into organic fertilizer for agricultural use, processing it into biomass for renewable energy production, and refining it into raw material for a range of industrial goods from construction materials to bioplastics. While these applications are still in early stages of scaled development, they offer a potential pathway to turn an expensive environmental crisis into a new, sustainable resource for the region.

  • Banco Popular launches Gnial cards made with plastic recovered from Dominican coast

    Banco Popular launches Gnial cards made with plastic recovered from Dominican coast

    In a landmark step that merges mainstream finance with ocean conservation, Banco Popular Dominicano has unveiled an innovative sustainability initiative that turns coastline plastic waste into everyday payment cards. The country’s leading banking institution announced this week that its popular Gnial line of credit and debit cards will now be manufactured exclusively from plastic retrieved from the shorelines of Sánchez, a coastal community in the Samaná province, through a formal collaboration with global environmental nonprofit Parley for the Oceans.

    This project is not an isolated corporate gesture, but a core component of the bank’s long-term corporate sustainability strategy. By integrating circular economy principles directly into its consumer financial products, Banco Popular is aiming to close the plastic waste loop while amplifying the community-led plastic collection and recycling programs already operating across Dominican coastal regions. The model puts discarded ocean-bound plastic back into productive use, keeping harmful waste out of marine habitats and supporting local livelihoods tied to coastal conservation work.

    Beyond the card manufacturing innovation, the bank has introduced a complementary giving program to accelerate ocean protection efforts across the country. Cardholders will have the option to donate their accumulated Popular Miles rewards points to fund local initiatives focused on coastal ecosystem protection and plastic pollution reduction. To maximize the impact of individual contributions, Banco Popular has partnered with the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF), which will match every donation through the Marena Fund — effectively tripling the total resources directed to on-the-ground ocean conservation projects.

    Christopher Paniagua, chief executive officer of Banco Popular Dominicano, emphasized that the new initiative reimagines what consumer banking products can achieve. The reimagined Gnial cards, he explained, successfully combine accessible financial innovation with intentional environmental responsibility, turning plastic waste that once threatened Dominican shorelines into a widely used everyday banking tool that drives further conservation action.

  • Coffee producers say up to 70% of coffee consumed in Dominican Republic is imported

    Coffee producers say up to 70% of coffee consumed in Dominican Republic is imported

    Santo Domingo — The Dominican Republic’s coffee industry is currently grappling with a striking paradox that has left local producers calling for urgent policy intervention. Even as the quality of domestically harvested coffee has improved dramatically and global coffee prices have hit record highs, between 60 and 70 percent of all coffee consumed within the country enters through imports, according to the National Network of Coffee Producers and Entrepreneurs (Reproca).

    Data shared by the industry group shows that total coffee import spending reached $54.6 million USD in 2023, with the bulk of these imports coming from major coffee-growing nations including Brazil, Vietnam, Honduras, and El Salvador. Enrique Chalas, a spokesperson for Reproca, explained the lopsided structure of the country’s coffee trade: the Dominican Republic exports its highest-tier, premium-quality coffee to international markets, while depending on cheaper, lower-grade imported beans to satisfy everyday domestic demand.

    Local coffee growers also point to growing economic inequity in the sector amid the global price surge. The per-quintal market price of coffee has jumped from 5,500 Dominican pesos in 2021 to a projected 23,000 Dominican pesos by 2025, but small and medium local producers have not seen proportional gains from this increase. Reproca notes that domestic production has remained stagnant for years, leaving local growers unable to capitalize on rising prices and access untapped domestic market opportunities.

    Another core grievance from the sector centers on the budget management of the Dominican Coffee Institute (Indocafé), the government body tasked with supporting domestic coffee production. Producers argue that the majority of Indocafé’s annual 350 million peso budget is allocated to administrative payroll expenses, leaving almost no funding for critical investments: technical training for small-scale growers, infrastructure upgrades for harvesting and processing, and rural development support. This lack of investment, producers say, has created a vicious cycle that drives farm workers to leave rural coffee-growing regions in search of better opportunities, worsening widespread labor shortages across the sector.

    To reverse this decades-long trend of growing import dependence, Reproca and its affiliated producers are calling on the Dominican government to designate expanding domestic coffee production as an official “National Goal.” Producers contend that with targeted, supportive public policy reforms, the Dominican Republic could meet as much as 90 percent of its own domestic coffee demand. Beyond boosting food sovereignty and producer incomes, the group adds that expanding sustainable domestic coffee production would also drive inclusive rural development and strengthen environmental conservation, since coffee cultivation in the country typically relies on climate-friendly agroforestry practices.

  • DIDA warns it will sue if private clinics suspend patient care

    DIDA warns it will sue if private clinics suspend patient care

    In Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, a looming breakdown in the nation’s private healthcare system has prompted a sharp response from the country’s social security watchdog, signaling that legal action will be taken immediately if patient access to care is disrupted amid an ongoing standoff between medical providers and state-regulated health insurers.

    The General Directorate of Information and Defense of Social Security Affiliates, widely known by its Spanish acronym DIDA, has issued a formal warning that it will launch a collective legal suit against any private health facilities that choose to suspend services for patients over their ongoing contractual and financial dispute with Health Risk Administrators (ARS), the country’s regulated health insurance management bodies.

    DIDA Director General Elías Báez confirmed that the agency has already prepared all necessary steps to activate immediate legal proceedings should service interruptions occur, framing the move as a non-negotiable defense of the constitutionally guaranteed right to healthcare for all Dominican social security affiliates. Báez stressed that regardless of the severity of disagreements between insurance providers and medical institutions, the delivery of life-sustaining and essential medical care must remain fully uninterrupted. Patients should never be used as bargaining chips in commercial disputes between industry stakeholders, he added.

    Acknowledging that private medical providers hold a legitimate right to pursue their financial and contractual claims against the ARS, Báez noted that the country’s existing legal and institutional framework already provides clear, formal pathways to resolve these conflicts without putting vulnerable patients at risk. He further clarified that all public resources managed by the ARS are legally and ethically required to be used exclusively to ensure full access to the benefits outlined under the national Family Health Insurance Plan (PDSS), and cannot be diverted in ways that undermine patient access.

    DIDA is maintaining round-the-clock surveillance of the situation across all private health facilities in the country, and has committed to pursuing every available legal and constitutional measure to enforce the continuity of care for social security affiliates. To support affected patients, the agency has also confirmed that its guidance and patient assistance hotlines and digital channels remain operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive complaints, answer questions and connect affiliates with alternative care if needed.

  • DGII warns increase in NGOs and business closures warrants tax review

    DGII warns increase in NGOs and business closures warrants tax review

    In Santo Domingo, the top Dominican tax official has sounded an alarm over two shifting economic trends that he argues demand heightened regulatory attention: the rapid proliferation of newly registered non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a concurrent spike in the number of companies winding down their operations. Pedro Urrutia, Director General of Internal Taxes (DGII), laid out these concerns during a scheduled meeting with leadership from the Dominican Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CODOPYME).

    Urrutia acknowledged that many corporate closures stem from legitimate financial hardship, with business owners honestly reporting sustained losses to tax bodies. But he drew a clear distinction between these cases and those that raise red flags: a subset of dissolved or struggling companies continue to import high-value assets and run active commercial operations, behavior that directly contradicts the poor financial standing they have declared to regulators.

    A striking pattern has emerged in DGII tax records, Urrutia noted: time and again, waves of corporate liquidations align with surges in new NGO registrations. This correlation has prompted the tax agency to launch a deeper review, aimed at uncovering whether the shift from registered companies to nonprofits is a legitimate restructuring, or a strategic maneuver to evade tax obligations.

    Urutia emphasized that non-profit entities are legally required to operate consistent with their stated public or charitable mission, and DGII carries a core mandate to enforce this compliance. To illustrate the type of suspicious activity the agency will target, he cited a hypothetical example: an NGO registered to carry out religious community work that purchases luxury assets, a transaction that bears no logical connection to its stated purpose. Such out-of-line activity, Urrutia argued, clearly merits further investigation as part of the agency’s ongoing oversight work to protect the country’s tax base.

  • Merchants ask Abinader to reconsider border dry port proposal

    Merchants ask Abinader to reconsider border dry port proposal

    SANTO DOMINGO — Leaders of the Dominican Republic’s National Council of Border Business Owners and Merchants have publicly stated they trust President Luis Abinader will deliver a balanced, consensus-driven ruling on a controversial proposal to build new dry ports across the country’s border provinces.

    In remarks delivered during a strategy gathering at the council’s Santo Domingo headquarters, organization president Carlos Morillo Valdés, widely known by his nickname “Chijo”, commended the president for his open approach to collaborating with the nation’s productive industries. Morillo emphasized that the group remains confident the presidential administration will thoroughly review and weigh its concerns before settling on any final outcome for the infrastructure project.

    Morillo did not soften the council’s core objections to the plan, however. He issued a clear warning that siting new dry ports directly along the Dominican border risks upending the long-established patterns of cross-border trade between the Dominican Republic and its neighboring nation. If implemented without adjustments, Morillo argued, the project could threaten the livelihoods of more than 13,000 independent border merchants and an estimated 100,000 additional workers and family members whose incomes rely on the stability of binational commerce.

    The council used the meeting as an opportunity to restate its core demand: any final decision on the dry port proposal must emerge from inclusive, good-faith dialogue with all affected industry stakeholders. The organization stressed that balanced policy must both advance the government’s goal of sustainable regional economic development and protect the existing border trade ecosystem that supports tens of thousands of working Dominican families.

    Beyond the dry port debate, the gathering also allowed attending business leaders to assess the current health of binational trade, brainstorm new initiatives to bolster commercial activity along the border, and map out strategies to expand economic opportunity for communities that have resided and operated in these frontier regions for generations.

  • Military training exercise, Grand Etang, St Andrew

    Military training exercise, Grand Etang, St Andrew

    In an official public announcement issued through the Office of the Commissioner of Police, the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) has confirmed a key schedule adjustment for an upcoming military training exercise set to take place in the parish of St Andrew.

    Originally planned to run from Monday, July 6 to Thursday, July 9, 2026 at the Grand Etang training site, the drill has been pushed back to a new window: Thursday, July 9 through Sunday, July 12, 2026.

    As with any organized military training activity of this type, the exercise will incorporate non-lethal training munitions, specifically blank rounds, along with smoke screen pyrotechnics to simulate realistic operational conditions. The RGPF moved quickly to reassure local residents and visitors who may be in the area during the exercise period, emphasizing that all activity will be held under strictly controlled, pre-planned conditions and that there is no reason for public concern or alarm.

    Acknowledging that any change to a previously announced public event can disrupt personal plans, travel itineraries or local activities, the law enforcement agency issued a formal apology for any inconvenience the rescheduling may cause. It also expressed gratitude in advance for the understanding and cooperation of the Grenadian public as the training proceeds.

    This announcement follows standard public notification protocols for security training activities in the country, designed to keep communities informed and prevent unnecessary public disruption or anxiety. The original publication of this notice by NOW Grenada includes a standard disclaimer that the outlet is not liable for any content or opinions shared by official contributing sources, and provides a channel for users to report any abusive content related to the publication.