Emily Ferland
November 27th 2010
Soc 202-01
7:37 PM
The Dominican Republic decided to close borders With Haiti this past week, it will be a good amount of time until it re-opens the borders. The biggest concern for the nation is that the Dominican does not have the resources to treat the cholera outbreak if the nation is hit with the disease, their biggest fear is that it will cross boarders and create an outbreak among the Dominican people. The current focus is reinforcing the boarders between The Dominican Republic and Haiti to be sure that Haitians do not try to sneak through the border of The Dominican. Closing boarders also means a great amount of economic loss for both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Dominican does not want to take any risks with peoples lives. Dozens of Haitians have attempted to cross boarders, but many were captured and sent back to Haiti. A popular way for the people of Haiti to cross boarders is through human trafficking, this is making it difficult for the government to spot if any illegals are crossing borders.
It is very important that both countries try their best to keep Haitians in Haiti. The Dominican is working hard to keep Haitians in their own country. It is a huge concern if they do cross borders because the disease will spread, The Dominican is not prepared for a Cholera outbreak. If an outbreak occurred in the Dominican it would be similar to an outbreak in Haiti. Controlling the borders will not be an easy fix, they will need to be consistently controlled by the government for a long period of time. The outbreak in Haiti will last longer than anticipated, the most important aspect of this outbreak is to keep it confined to prevent further spread of the disease.
http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-1759-haiti-cholera-epidemic-border-closed-important-dominican-military-device.html
5 comments:
I can definitely understand both sides of the situation. The Haitian people are trying to escape very bad conditions and the Dominican Republic wants to keep its own people safe. One possible solution could be to let some Haitian people into the D.R and let the D.R get some international aid to provide to their new refugees.
Is this a disappointing situation, but there is no middle that could be made. Dominican Republic has to protect itself and are forced to close the border so they would endanger their people but Haiti is just trying to find a relief and they really don't have any choice but go to their neighboring country.
I agree as Wfdelcar said, no middle ground really can be made in this situation. The people in Haiti are trying to get help and relief from the people of the Dominican Republic, but I also understand where the people of the Dominican Republic are coming from, not wanting the disease to be spreading to their land. This is such a fragile issue to deal with.
D.R has to tread very carefully. Even if one person slips over the borders and is already infected. that person can pass it on very quickly. Middle ground doesn't exist so they are left to do the extreme but very necessary in order to keep cholera contained.
I personally believe that the best thing globally is to keep the D.R. borders closed. Thats the only way to keep the disease from spreading to the D.R. If it spreads there, it could spread everywhere.
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