The sec­ond batch of Kenyan law en­force­ment of­fi­cials has ar­rived in Haiti as part of the Multi­na­tion­al Mis­sion to Sup­port the Na­tion­al Po­lice of Haiti (PNH) es­tab­lish peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the French-speak­ing CARI­COM coun­try.

Kenya is poised to send 1,000 po­lice of­fi­cers to Haiti and the sec­ond batch of 200 ar­rived at the Tou­s­saint Lou­ver­ture Air­port in Port-au-Prince on board the char­tered OAE2376 of Om­ni Air In­ter­na­tion­al. The Kenyan po­lice of­fi­cers from sev­er­al spe­cial­ized units dis­em­barked and re­grouped on the Tar­mac be­fore re­turn­ing by bus to their base lo­cat­ed with­in the air­port perime­ter.

They were met on ar­rival by the Kenyan com­man­der in Haiti, In­spec­tor Gen­er­al God­frey Otunge, who said, “the ar­rival of this sec­ond group is proof of Kenya’s com­mit­ment.”

“The ar­rival of the ad­di­tion­al con­tin­gent is a huge re­in­force­ment to the MSS mis­sion and will go a long way in build­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the Hait­ian Po­lice to curb the ac­tiv­i­ties of the gangs.”

In­spec­tor Gen­er­al Otunge stat­ed: “The Haiti Na­tion­al Po­lice are al­ready work­ing with the first Kenyan Con­tin­gent (KEN­CON) and we will con­tin­ue to re­al­ize the fruits of our joint ef­forts that are geared to­wards en­abling Haiti to re­gain its sta­bil­i­ty and be­come an eco­nom­ic pow­er­house.”

“This con­tin­gent will great­ly con­tribute to strength­en­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the Hait­ian po­lice so that they can put gangs out of harm’s way,” he added.

Last Oc­to­ber, the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil ap­proved a Kenya-led multi­na­tion­al force as ef­forts con­tin­ue to re­store peace and se­cu­ri­ty in the coun­try with crim­i­nal gangs re­port­ed to be in con­trol of at least 80 per cent of the cap­i­tal.

The Ba­hamas, Bangladesh, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Benin, Chad, Ja­maica and Kenya have of­fi­cial­ly no­ti­fied the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of their in­tent to con­tribute per­son­nel to the sup­port mis­sion.

In wel­com­ing the ar­rival of the first batch of 400 sol­diers from Kenya in June, Haiti’s Prime Min­is­ter Gar­ry Conille spoke of, “the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the Kenyan gov­ern­ment and its peo­ple to sup­port Haiti in the fight against in­se­cu­ri­ty that is cor­rod­ing the so­ci­ety.”

“The gov­ern­ment and the Hait­ian peo­ple want this multi­na­tion­al mis­sion to be the last one that helps it sta­bi­lize for the re­new­al of po­lit­i­cal per­son­nel and the re­turn to ef­fec­tive democ­ra­cy. Long live sol­i­dar­i­ty be­tween peo­ples! Long live Haiti!” Prime Min­is­ter Conille said.

The MSS is ex­pect­ed to com­prise more or less 2,500 po­lice and mil­i­tary of­fi­cers.

On Tues­day, the US Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Lin­da Thomas-Green­field, post­ed a mes­sage on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) to ex­press Wash­ing­ton’s grate­ful­ness for Kenya’s lead­er­ship over the multi­na­tion­al mis­sion.

“Grate­ful for Kenya’s lead­er­ship and the ar­rival of Kenyan of­fi­cers in Haiti,” Am­bas­sador Thomas-Green­field said.

She al­so em­pha­sised the need for glob­al and re­gion­al part­ners to sus­tain ef­forts in ad­dress­ing Haiti’s mul­ti­di­men­sion­al cri­sis dur­ing a meet­ing on the coun­try’s chal­lenges with Kenya’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vi­sor, Mon­i­ca Ju­ma, and re­gion­al part­ners sup­port­ing the MSS. —PORT AU PRINCE (CMC)