Prince Port/A contingent of 400 Kenyan soldiers arrived this Tuesday at the ‘Toussaint Louverture’ airport in Port-au-Prince to support the Haitian National Police in stopping violence at the hands of armed gangs, which has caused thousands of victims and displaced people.
The flight, of the national flag airline Kenya Airwaysdeparted from the ‘Jomo Kenyatta’ International Airport last Monday night with the presence, at the foot of the runway, of the Minister of the Interior, Kindiki Kithure, among other authorities, hours after the President of Kenya, William Ruto, bid farewell to the troops at an official event in Nairobi.
In a message on Haiti hopes that this multinational mission will be the last one that contributes to stabilizing the country so that it can renew its political personnel and return to an effective democracy (…) Long live solidarity between peoples,” wrote Conille, who stressed his determination to return peace to the country.
The troops arriving in Haiti are part of the total of 1,000 police officers that Kenya offered to lead the multinational security support mission, authorized in October 2023 by the United Nations Security Council. The agents come from various police units and have received training in different areas, including languages.
Their presence “in Haiti will provide relief to women, men and children whose lives have been destroyed by the violence of armed gangs (…) We will work with the international community to achieve lasting stability in Haiti,” Ruto said this Monday through X .
The police contingent arrived in Haiti this Tuesday, despite the judicial obstacles that the deployment has encountered in the Kenyan courts
Last week, Ruto spoke to the Haitian Presidential Transition Council (CPT), whose establishment last April was a necessary condition for Kenya before sending agents. Likewise, the inspector general of the National Police Service (NPS) of Kenya, Japhet Koome, met in Nairobi on June 18 with a delegation of the Haitian Police, a few weeks after a Kenyan reconnaissance team returned from the Caribbean country .
The Nairobi High Court has scheduled a hearing for October 7 on a new appeal by a Kenyan opposition party against the deployment of the first agents to Haiti. In October 2023, the United Nations Security Council authorized the sending of a support mission to the Haitian National Police, in response to the request made a year earlier by the authorities of the Caribbean country to eradicate violence by armed gangs. . Last year, this violence caused 8,000 victims in Haiti, where criminal gangs have come to control 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as other areas of the country, according to United Nations figures.
Kenya deploys the Army due to the “security emergency” caused by the protests
This Tuesday, a few hours after the arrival in Haiti of the police contingent sent by Kenya, the Government of the African country ordered the deployment of the Army to address the “security emergency” caused by protests against a tax increase bill. that have shaken the country to the point of causing protesters to storm Parliament in Nairobi.
“The Kenya Defense Forces are deployed on June 25, 2024 in support of the National Police Service,” Kenyan Defense Minister Aden Duale said in a brief decree published in The Kenyan Gazette (Official State Gazette).
The military mobilization comes “in response to the security emergency caused by ongoing violent protests in various parts of the Republic of Kenya resulting in destruction and violation of critical infrastructure,” Duale added.
