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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Haiti PM says arrival of Kenyans will help restore peace and security

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31 days ago
20250120
FILE: Police from Kenya stand on the tarmac of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The first U.N.-backed contingent of foreign police arrived nearly two years after the Caribbean country requested help to quell a surge in gang violence. (AP Photo/Marckinson Pierre)

FILE: Police from Kenya stand on the tarmac of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The first U.N.-backed contingent of foreign police arrived nearly two years after the Caribbean country requested help to quell a surge in gang violence. (AP Photo/Marckinson Pierre)

Prime Min­is­ter Al­ix Di­di­er Fils-Aimé says the ar­rival of 218 Kenyan po­lice and mil­i­tary per­son­nel il­lus­trates the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the gov­ern­ment and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to erad­i­cate armed gangs and re­store peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try.

“The ar­rival of these re­in­force­ments marks a cru­cial step in free­ing our coun­try from the grip of crim­i­nal net­works and restor­ing peace there,” he said.

The ar­rival of the Kenyans over the last week­end, brings the to­tal strength of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil sanc­tioned Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion in Haiti to 807 mil­i­tary and po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing 617 Kenyans, 150 Guatemalans, eight Sal­vado­rans, six Ba­hami­ans, 24 Ja­maicans and two Be­lizeans.

The MSS is ex­pect­ed to reach a to­tal of 2,500 and last week the Be­lize gov­ern­ment said it is con­sid­er­ing whether or not it will de­ploy more sol­diers to Haiti af­ter in­di­cat­ing that “there are a few out­stand­ing is­sues that have to be re­solved” be­fore troops could be sent there.

Be­lize had orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed to de­ploy at least 50 per­son­nel from the Be­lize De­fence Force (BDF) and the Coast Guard, but For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Fran­cis Fon­se­ca, said fol­low­ing a brief­ing to Cab­i­net “I think there are a few out­stand­ing is­sues that have to be re­solved in terms of en­sur­ing that our sol­diers are ready”.

Ear­li­er this month, Bar­ba­dos de­fend­ed its de­ci­sion to sus­pend plans to send troops to Haiti, ex­press­ing con­cern that the en­vi­ron­ment in the coun­try had be­come more dan­ger­ous.

The re­in­force­ments come amid grow­ing con­cerns over es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence in Haiti, where armed groups that con­trol more than 80 per cent of the cap­i­tal have forced more than a mil­lion peo­ple across the coun­try to flee their homes.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Of­fice re­port­ed ear­li­er this month that at least 5,601 peo­ple were killed in Haiti last year as a re­sult of gang vi­o­lence, an in­crease of over 1,000 on the to­tal killings for 2023. It said a fur­ther 2,212 peo­ple were in­jured and 1,494 kid­napped.

Pres­i­den­tial Ad­vi­sor, Fritz Alphonse Jean, in wel­com­ing the new Kenyan con­tin­gent, thanked the African coun­try, which was the first coun­try to re­spond to help Haiti and that the state is ready to de­clare war on all crim­i­nal groups that are pre­vent­ing the coun­try from mov­ing for­ward.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Jan 20, CMC –

CMC/ag/ir/2025

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