The Bahamas’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration is warning its citizens traveling to the United States of “recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers. The government of the majority-black Caribbean nation emphasized in an statement Friday that its travelers should avoid crowds and demonstrations in the U.S. Young men, specifically, should “exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police … Do not be confrontational and cooperate.”
The warning comes ahead of the country’s Independence Day on Monday, a public holiday when many Bahamians plan to travel to the United States.
The Bahamian travel advisory follows the fatal shootings of two African-American men earlier this week in separate incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota, and after five police officers were killed and seven others were wounded by a shooter who opened fire during a rally in Dallas.
In the United States, protests over those and earlier shootings of black men by police continued in several cities on Saturday.
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“Pay attention to the public notices and news announcements in the city that you are visiting,” Friday’s statement by Bahamian authorities concluded.
This is not the first time in recent months that a government has issued travel advisories for its citizens heading to the United States.
In April, the UK Foreign Office cautioned its LGBT over controversial legislation passed in North Carolina and Mississippi.
Generally, the U.S. State Department is quick to issue travel warnings for U.S. citizens heading abroad to countries where pockets of violence have erupted. In recent weeks U.S. citizens have been cautioned on traveling to Venezuela, Iraq, Bangladesh, Mali and Laos.
