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View Full Version : Border at Jimani is a mess



NewsWhore
06-04-2010, 05:30 PM
With the waters from the nearby Lake Fondo or Solie rising every day, and the rains continuing to fall, the area surrounding the major crossing between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has become a muddy morass. The mud and the rising waters have produced, according to the El Caribe, "chaos", with border crossings taking as much as three hours, especially on Monday and Friday. The latest rains have also caused the Azuei Lake to overflow, complicating things even more. Since the streets and most of the roads are not paved, the result is a sea of mud and dirty waters. Both bodies of water became one, just in back of the offices of Migration and Customs in Jimani.
Despite the fact that the area on the Dominican side is quite large, only the roadway itself, two lanes is paved and not nearly sufficient to service the traffic it now carries. There are two main causes of the chaos: one is the fact that some truck drivers decide to take the opposite lane trying to get ahead of the long lines and find themselves face to face with another truck, equally large, that is going in the opposite direction. The other cause is the fact that there is an open air market in Jimani, where Haitians and Dominicans go to make purchases. The market is set up alongside the road and impedes traffic. Perhaps the only persons benefiting from the mess are the motoconcho drivers who charge people RD$50 just to cross the waters of the lagoons and lakes.

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