New Contingent on Kenyan Police Officers Arrive in Haiti

Kenyan troops arrive in Haiti on Saturday

Africa News with AP

The latest contingent of 217 Kenyan police officers arrived in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince on Saturday where they were greeted by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime.

They are being deployed to the Caribbean country to provide back-up to an understaffed international security mission.

About 10 countries pledged troops for Haiti as part of a United Nations-backed anti-gang force, but few have so far been deployed.

Kenya began sending police to the country in June last year and now has more than 600 people on the ground.

President William Ruto has promised a total of 1,000 troops as part of the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission.

Kenya's Interior Minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, addressed the latest group ahead of their departure.

“I know many questions are being asked by some people to say, we haven't sorted every other problem [at home] and why are we donating our police officers.”

 “We don't usually do or give out of abundance of what we have. Giving is the spirit that is in us as Kenyans,” he said.

Murkomen said the officers who have been there since last head had “contained so many of those gangs”.

“I believe you are going to vanquish them, you are going to create a working environment for the Haitians and you are going to hand over a country to the locals,” he said.

But the United Nations said more than 5,600 people were killed in spiralling gang violence in Haiti last year.

Fighting has also left more than 700,000 Haitians homeless in recent years, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters.

The UN estimates that more than 80 per cent of the capital is still controlled by criminal gangs.