SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Dominican Republic troops fired live ammunition at hundreds of Haitian migrants attempting to cross the Dajabón border bridge from Haiti on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding 12, according to officials on both sides of the border.
The incident marks a dramatic escalation in the cross-border tensions that have simmered since Haiti’s government collapsed in March. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, sealed its land border immediately after the violence, deploying additional army units to Dajabón province. Dominican President Luis Abinader called an emergency cabinet meeting Thursday evening.
The surge of migrants — hundreds trying to cross into Dominican territory in a single morning — was triggered by worsening conditions in Haiti, where gang violence has displaced an estimated 40,000 people in the past two weeks alone. A Haitian aid group told Media Hook that at least six additional people were trampled or crushed in the crowd surge as Dominican forces pushed back.
Mexico simultaneously deployed National Guard units to its southern border Thursday as the cascading regional crisis entered a new and more volatile phase. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the deployment in a brief public statement, saying the measure was “preventive” given the anticipated spillover of migration from the Haitian crisis.
The Dominican Republic’s foreign ministry formally protested what it called “the forced displacement orchestrated by criminal networks exploiting Haiti’s collapse.” A statement called on the international community to “take responsibility” for stabilizing Haiti rather than allowing the crisis to spread across the island.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Thursday it had recorded more than 18,000 Haitian displacement movements toward the Dominican Republic in the past 30 days — triple the figure from the same period last year. Agency spokesperson Olusola Iwayemi said the Dajabón bridge crossing has become “the most dangerous and least regulated migration point in the Caribbean.”
Dominican authorities say they are processing asylum claims at its embassy in Port-au-Prince, but critics say the overwhelmed Haitian capital has no functioning government to coordinate with. The Dominican Republic expelled roughly 10,000 migrants in 2025 alone under existing emergency border protocols.
The violence comes as the Dominican Republic prepares for a constitutional referendum on June 15 that would, among other measures, formally prohibit any pathway to citizenship for undocumented foreigners — a measure critics say is designed specifically to block Haitian migrants.