200 more Kenyan police deploy to tackle Haiti violence

A second contingent of 200 police officers from Kenya arrive at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 16, 2024. Another 200 police officers arrived Haiti under a UN-backed mission to try to quell rampant gang violence. The deployment comes after Kenya sent some 400 officers to Port-au-Prince in June, part of a controversial offer to send some 1,000 police to help stabilize the country. (Photo by Clarens SIFFROY / AFP)

Another 200 Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti Tuesday under a UN-backed mission to try to quell rampant gang violence in the troubled Caribbean nation, where they were welcomed by senior Haitian and Kenyan police officials.

Haitian sources say the new batch brings the total to 400 Kenyan boots on the ground in violence-ravaged Port-au-Prince, part of a closely watched offer to send some 1,000 police officers to help stabilize the country.

The Kenyan contingent of what is shaping up to be a multinational mission has run into persistent legal challenges in Nairobi, where embattled President William Ruto is simultaneously trying to calm roiling anti-government protests at home.

The East African nation is leading a force expected to number a total of some 2,500 personnel.

Other countries, mostly in Africa and the Caribbean, are also contributing to the mission, which is blessed but not managed by the United Nations.

"In the name of the government and the transitional presidential council, welcome," Rameau Normil, director general of the Haitian police, told the soldiers alongside Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan commander of the police contingent in Haiti.

On July 1, Kenya's National Police Service issued a statement to scotch rumors that seven officers had been killed in Haiti.

The forces deployed had been "received warmly", and were "all safe and ready to discharge their clear and specific mandate," it said.

They were "working closely with their host, the Haitian National Police, and have so far undertaken strategic mapping of the likely areas of operational concerns and conducted several joint patrols within Port-au-Prince."

- Rule of law -

Kenyan police sources say 600 officers have left for Haiti, counting those that arrived Tuesday.

"More will be departing soon until we have all the 1,000," a source told AFP.

The deployment was approved by a UN Security Council resolution in October, only to be delayed by a Kenyan court decision in January that ruled it unconstitutional.

The court said Ruto's administration had no authority to send officers abroad without a prior bilateral agreement.

While the government secured that agreement with Haiti in March, a small opposition party, Thirdway Alliance Kenya, has filed a lawsuit in another attempt to block it.

The United States had been eagerly seeking a country to lead the mission and is supplying funding and logistical support.

US President Joe Biden flatly ruled out putting US boots on the ground in Haiti -- the poorest nation in the Americas, where Washington has a history of intervention.

Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the Haiti mission and doubts over its funding, while watchdogs have repeatedly accused Kenyan police of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings.

Haiti has long been rocked by gang violence, but conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.

The violence in Port-au-Prince has affected food security and humanitarian aid access, with much of the city in the hands of gangs accused of abuses including murder, rape, looting and kidnappings.

© Agence France-Presse