Human shields used at the border

Santiago.- The authorities heightened security checks along the northern border with Haiti to deal with the increasing traffic of undocumented Haitians called alarming, many of them children “used criminally as human shields,” official sources quoted by EFE affirmed today.

The Border Security Guard (Cesfront) said at least 55 children have been rescued in the last five days when they were being taken to Santiago. At dawn Saturday, 17 Haitian children were rescued when they were transported on a vehicle on the highway that links the country’s second biggest city with the border zone.

Felix Manuel Ureña, 10th Army Battalion commander in northwest Dajabón, affirmed Monday that a public transport bus was retained with a group of Haitians traveled, with 24 arrested, while the others escaped.

Border civilian and military authorities quoted by news source elnacional.com.do say the new modality used by the people traffickers who operate in Haiti and Dominican Republic merits concern. “They are now taking them from one place to another on motorcycles. They take up to six children, many of them newborn, drive a fast speeds then the military can’t do anything (...) because they criminally take innocent creatures used as human shields.”
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2011/8/1/40434/Traffickers-use-children-as-human-shields-at-Haiti-Dominican-border