The head of the Kenyan support mission in Haiti has refuted claims that Kenyan police officers needed rescuing from their Haitian counterparts during a joint operation aimed at protecting a city from armed gangs.
The operation, conducted 28 miles east of Port-au-Prince, focused on defending the rural town of Ganthier near the Dominican Republic border. Godfrey Otunge, commander of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, highlighted the effective collaboration between Kenyan police and the Haiti National Police (HNP).
“My officers and my vehicles were shot at,” Otunge told the Miami Herald. “And the officers fought fiercely alongside the HNP.”
He emphasized, “At no point did the HNP or MSS seem to be competing with each other.”
These statements follow criticisms from Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of Haiti’s oldest daily newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, who labeled the operation in Ganthier a failure. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Duval criticized the operation as indicative of the unfulfilled promises by the United States and Canada to restore security in Haiti.
Duval noted that despite the arrival of the first contingent of 400 Kenyan police officers on June 25, the security situation in Haiti showed little improvement. He specifically cited the July 21 attack on Ganthier by the powerful 400 Mawozo gang, claiming that when the situation deteriorated, the HNP had to provide cover for the Kenyan forces.
“The Kenyans went on a mission to Ganthier with the HNP. When things went awry, it was the HNP that shielded the Kenyans… because the Haitians are better equipped than the Kenyans,” Duval said.
Despite these reports, Otunge remains adamant that the mission was a unified effort, dismissing any notion of competition between the Kenyan and Haitian forces.
