Dominican Republic and Costa Rica they asked this Saturday at the Ibero-American summit for the international community to act upon “Pacify” Haiti, a country with rampant gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

“The only way to deal with Haiti is to pacify Haiti. If you want to help Haiti, he must go to pacify Haiti (…), the international community cannot allow this situation to continue in Haiti, Those who suffer are the poor Haitians,” Dominican President Luis Abinader said at the rally in Santo Domingo.

Abinader spoke on the issue after his Costa Rican counterpart, Rodrigo Chaves, called in his plenary speech for the UN to “provide an immediate response” to the crisis.

“This conference should do it a strong and forceful appeal to the United Nations to give an immediate response to Haiti’s requests for that country to regain control, to contain violence in a failed state,” said Chaves, who stressed that 70% of Port-au- Prince, the Haitian capital, “It is controlled by criminal groups.”

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americaswear plunged for years into a worsening humanitarian, economic and political crisis since Moise’s murder and accentuated by the rise of gang violence.

In the first quarter of this year alone, more than 500 people were killed by these gangs. said the United Nations, which in March called for the deployment of a specialized support force.

Haiti requested international assistance in October 2022 to deal with this crisis.

Chaves believed that the country should be pacified before considering a call for elections: “We need to put out the fire before we start wondering how we’re going to rebuild that house.”

“Mr. Luis Abinader, the world is looking the other way again and to me as a Costa Rican it doesn’t seem fair to tell the Dominican Republic to send military forces, even if there are any, to a neighboring country. This is a global responsibility and we are not taking that responsibility,” added Chaves.