SANTO DOMINGO (AP) – The Dominican Republic will create a military force to monitor the border shared with Haiti, after months of heightened tensions between the two neighbours.

Army, Navy and Air Force soldiers will form a unit to guard the 391-kilometre (243-mile) border, Sigfrido Pared Perez, head of the Dominican armed forces, said Tuesday. They’ll begin work in January or February.

“The specialised unit will have as its mission to patrol all areas that are contiguous with the neighbouring country,” Pared told The Associated Press.

About 1,000 Dominican soldiers were currently patrolling the border area. Pared said they haven’t decided whether they will use troops already on border patrol to form the new force, or bring in additional soldiers.

About 1 million Haitians, many of them illegal immigrants, live in the Dominican Republic, home to 8.8 million people.

The Dominican Republic has relied on Haitian labour for decades to cut sugar cane, harvest coffee beans and to work in construction.

Tensions have recently grown between the two nations, which share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

In mid-December, student protesters angry over the treatment of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, disrupted a one-day visit to Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince by Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.

Earlier this month, Dominican villagers burned about 20 shacks occupied by Haitian migrants in reprisal for their alleged involvement in the killing of a businessman.

In May, the Dominican government deported at least 2,000 Haitians after the killing of a Dominican woman. No one was arrested for the murder, but Dominicans went on a retaliatory rampage, beheading two Haitians.