Another 200 Kenyan police officers have left for Haiti under a UN-backed mission to quell rampant gang violence in the troubled Caribbean nation, senior police officers said Tuesday.
This deployment follows the East African nation’s June dispatch of 400 officers to the violence-ravaged Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, as part of a contentious plan to send approximately 1,000 police to help stabilize the country.
President William Ruto, who is grappling with anti-government protests at home, made the promise, which faced persistent legal challenges in Kenya.
“We have 200 police officers who left last night, and they should land in Haiti this morning,” one senior police officer told AFP on Tuesday. “They are joining their colleagues who are already on the ground.”
Another senior police source confirmed that the officers departed on Monday night via a chartered plane, adding, “More will be departing soon until we have all 1,000 officers there.”
The deployment comes two weeks after Kenyan police dismissed 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,” police said in a statement on July 1.
The Kenyan officers are “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,” according to the statement.
On Monday, July 8, Haitian police chief Normil Rameau revealed that the Kenyan police had retaken control of the country’s largest public hospital, which gangs had occupied for over four months. The operation took place on the night of Sunday, July 7, successfully reclaiming the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, also known as the General Hospital.
