Wreck off Borgne
The night between Wednesday, April 8th to Thursday, 9th a sailboat with about 50 Haitians tried to leave the country, despite poor weather reports. The boat, which was going in the direction of "Providenciales," an island of Turks and Caicos just 200 km north of Haiti, wrecked.
Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, the Director of the Disaster and Emergency Services explained that the incident occurred while the boat tried to get back to the Haitian coast because of the bad weather. The sailboat struck a cliff and capsized before sinking off the Haitian coast, near the locality "Nan Bak," bordering Borgne (approximately 160 km north of Port-au-Prince and Port-Margot, department of the North)
Twelve passengers were able to get back to dry land, while 21 died in the wreck. The magistrate of Borgne saw 11 corpses (8 women and 3 men). Ten other bodies that reached the coast of the municipality of Borgne (located to west of Cap-Haïtien) were directly retrieved by close friends and families of the victims.
Volunteers of the Disaster and Emergency Services, the temporary executive agent of Borgne, and the Vice Delegation of the District of the Borgne are coordinating the search and rescue, with the help of local fishermen.
Obama meets with CARICOM leaders in Jamaica
Haiti Sentinel / Written by Staff Writer on 10 April 2015.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (sentinel.ht) - US President Barack Obama, offered heads of states and governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) alternative clean energy for their countries to reduce dependence on Venezuelan, a country Obama, by executive order dated March 9, declared "an extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy" and laid sanctions on.
"This region has some of the highest costs of energy in the world," Obama said at the meeting on Thursday with Caricom, a block of 15 Caribbean nations. Obama said that the United States could help reduce that burden.
"If we can lower those costs through the development of clean energy and increased energy efficiency, we could generate, I think, more investment and growth," he said.
The Obama administration announced $20 million in funding to develop clean energy projects in the region, and the establishment of a working group on energy security. The White House is willing to offer an alternative to oil supplies from Venezuela which has been beneficial to many of the smaller economies in the region.
Since 2005 Petrocaribe, an initiative of Venezuela's PDVSA state, offers 17 Caribbean and Central American nations favorable payment terms for the supply of crude oil. With years of grace, low interest rates and the possibility to exchange it for agricultural products, the agreement provides for different conditions according to the international price of a barrel on a scale between 15 and 150 dollars which gives greater benefits to higher price.
In general, not in the case of Haiti, the Caribbean countries that must import most of their energy, have benefited from the sharp drop in oil prices. But as where failures Venezuela's economy, which depends exclusively on its oil exports, the Caribbean countries face stricter payment terms and lower supplies, leaving them more vulnerable situation deepen.
In 2014 Venezuela exported 2.37 million barrels of crude oil, 789,000 of which were to the United States, according to the Department of Energy of the country. Obama traveled Wednesday to Kingston, Jamaica and after his trip to the Summit of the Americas to be held in Panama.
Elections: Tom Adam declares that the situation is convenient for the organization of presidential, legislative, and municipal elections in Haiti.
The special coordinator of the U.S. State Department for Haiti, Thomas Adam, declared that the political atmosphere which prevails in the country at this time will make it possible for the realization of the elections planned this year.
In an interview with the “Voice of America,” he considered that all the big political parties are in favor of the election.
Addams declared having noticed interesting signs during his recent visit to the country, and said he hopes that the concerned parties will continue to work in favor of political stability and development.
Recalling that during these elections, all the elective offices will be up for grab, he explained that the elections will take place over the course of three days and that from an administrative standpoint, they will be pretty complicated.
Adams indicated that the United States and the other investors are going to support these elections financially and with their expertise. "The MINUSTAH will be there also to offer the same type of support which it has offered during the last few years,” he said. Although he noted that because the MUNISTAH had decreased its staff, a bit more effort will be necessary from the Haitian government.
Arrest of Dominican citizens to Moca
On Thursday evening, the regional Command of the Center Cibao of the Dominican National Police Force (PND), announced having arrested 11 Dominican citizens accused of violence and damaging the property of hundreds of Haitian citizens in the community of Ortega of Moca.
Colonel Lorenzo Morillo, local spokesman of the PND, declared that the prisoners had admitted to having committed these acts in response to the murder of motorcycle taxi driver Carlos Jose Nunez, age 18, who was beaten to death, then deprived of his motorcycle, apparently according to their assertions, by two Haitian immigrants who had boarded the community motorcycle-taxi last Monday.
This murder angered local residents, who chased off hundreds of Haitians who had been living in the Ortega community with inadequate immigration documentation, and had them deported. In addition, the houses where the Haitians lived were plundered and their belongings thrown in streets, where they were destroyed and burned.
Health: reconstruction of the Upper National Institute of Midwives Training
Last Wednesday the First Lady, Sophia Martelly, accompanied by Florence Duperval Guillaume, Minister for Public Health, and Paula Caldwell, Ambassadress of Canada to Haiti, participated in the ceremony of the laying of the first stone of the Upper National Institute of Midwives Training, on the site of the former national Nursing School, located next to the General hospital in the street Monseigneur Guilloux. "Professional midwives are important and necessary to support pregnant women in childbirth" declared the First Lady.
Canada, via its Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Trade and Development (MAECD), appointed the "United Nations Office for Project Services" (UNOPS) to rebuild this institute which had been destroyed during the earthquake of January, 2010. Financed at the level of 5 million dollars by the Canadians, the new institute, with a size of a little more than 1,000 m2, can welcome 160 students, and will include 4 classrooms, 2 rooms for hands on training, 1 computer lab equipped with 30 computers and dormitories with a capacity for 16 beds.
Reminding that only 36 % of the Haitian women are delivered by trained professionals, and 25 % are delivered in specialized institutions, the Minister of Health considers that her ministry should have at least 600 midwives. "With only 250 midwives, we are not yet capable of meeting the everyday needs […] This explains the importance which we have given since last year to the training of women and girls by giving them a preparation ranging from 18 to 36 months to considerably reduce the maternal mortality in the country […] The rebuilding of the national school of the midwives is a step, so that a woman [can] give birth with the assistance of qualified personnel."
This new professional educational establishment will make it possible to train approximately 70 midwives a year for the whole country.
Dominican Councilman arrested for drug trafficking through Haiti
Written by Staff Writer on 03 April 2015.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (sentinel.ht) - A councilman of the border province of Independencia in the Dominican Republic has been arrested for running a drug trafficking ring they say imported marijuana through Haiti.
Councilman Luis Domingo Medina Trinidad was arrested with four other men after police seized some 170 kilograms (375 pounds) of marijuana. Medina serves as Councilman of the Independencia province where Jimani is a major port of international trade between the nations.
Police say the suspects would bring marijuana in from Haiti through Lake Enriquillo. The drugs would then go to the Dominican capitol of Santo Domingo and the towns of Capotillo, Gualey, Guachupita, Los Mina, Sabana Perdida, Ensanche Isabelita, los Tres Ojos and municipalities Guerra and Boca Chica..
"It was determined by intelligence work that this organization carries marijuana shipments from Haiti to Dominican Republic, specifically to the Jimaní and is then transported using different vehicles to the city of Santo Domingo where supply of different drugs to neighborhoods of Greater Santo Domingo," said Central Narcotics Police (DICAN) Spokesman Jacobo Mateo Moquete.
He said other members of the network are dismantled Luis Raul Reyes Alcantara, alias "Luisito the decline"; Ángel Félix Montero, Emmanuel Cena Felix Rivas and Michelangelo, who were arrested during operations.
Police spokesman Jacobo Mateo Moquete said Friday that Medina was arrested after a month-long investigation while traveling in his vehicle down an avenue in west Santo Domingo. Medina did not put up a fight.
Who were the Dominican nationals working with on the Haitian side of the network? In speaking with some enforcement exports, The Sentinel has come to learn that likely possibility would be those with capabilities, more affluent members of Haitian society. The wealthy or politically connected are among the few who could be trusted to support such a network from the Haitian side.