Above: Haiti’s National Police destroying illegal drugs seized in Port-au-Prince earlier this year (UN Photo/Victoria Hazou)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

A group of officers from the Haitian National Police has returned to Haiti from a four-month-long canine training programme in Colombia.

The group, which came back to Haiti at the end of November, took the programme with the Colombian National Police.

The training focused on using trained dogs in the detection of narcotics, weapons and currency.

It was coordinated by the United States Narcotics Affairs Sections in Port-au-Prince and Bogota.

Five new dogs will be used by Haiti’s police for such detection.

It is the second time such a training programme has been held in Colombia for members of the HNP’s counter-narcotics unit, which now has increased the canine unit to 11 dogs.

The dogs, which were purchased and trained through funding from the US government, will undergo a period of adaptation in Port-au-Prince and then be transferred to Haiti’s northern corridor.

Haiti has been stepping up its cooperation with Latin American countries in the last few years. One country, Ecuador, will be training a number of Haitian police officers following an agreement signed earlier this year.