SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) – The Dominican Republic reinforced surveillance on the border with Haiti on Tuesday and announced an urgent search for one of its diplomats who disappeared there a few days ago.
Julio Ernesto Florian, head of the army, told media that the military would use drones and intelligence personnel to find information on the whereabouts of Carlos Guillen, a commercial attaché for agricultural affairs at the Dominican embassy in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Guillen has been missing since April 29 when he was driving from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican border town of Jimani.
Faruk Miguel Castillo, the Dominican ambassador to Haiti, said in a statement that he had requested Haiti’s Foreign Ministry to carry out an investigation into Guillen’s whereabouts.
Castillo also said he filed a complaint with the Haitian judicial police and provided records of the last calls from Guillen’s phone.
Both the Dominican Foreign Ministry and the office of Dominican President Luis Abinader, which released the ambassador’s statement, have not commented on efforts to locate the diplomat.
Although it is the first time that a Dominican diplomat has gone missing in Haiti, several drivers and workers from the country have been kidnapped there.
Brothers Maico Enrique and Antoino Campusano were kidnapped for more than a week in 2021 while they were working as technicians for a film production in Haiti.
(Reporting by Ezequiel Abiu; Writing by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Sandra Maler)
