Kenya offers to lead Haiti policing mission to combat gangs

Kenya's foreign minister said on Saturday that Nairobi was willing to lead a multinational force into Haiti.

The UN has for months been seeking a volunteer to coordinate an assistance mission in Haiti, which is experiencing a surge in violence between police and gangs who control the majority of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The escalating violence has displaced tens of thousands in the poorest country in the Americas.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed earlier this month to the Security Council for a volunteer to step forward.

Haiti requested foreign assistance late last year.

What has Kenya offered?

"At the request of the Friends of Haiti Group of Nations, Kenya has accepted to positively consider leading a Multi-National Force to Haiti," Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua said in a statement.

"Kenya's commitment is to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, restore normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations," he said.

Mutua said the planned deployment was still contingent on getting a UN Security Council mandate for the mission, and Kenyan authorizations.

"An Assessment Mission by a Task Team of the Kenya Police is scheduled within the next few days," he said.

What's the situation in Haiti?

Haiti has struggled with multiple problems, not least of them the influence of criminal gangs in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, for years.

It was also destabilized by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. Prime Minister Ariel Henry has suspended elections to find a new president indefinitely, saying they are not possible given the security situation.

In a further indication of the lawless situation that emerged on Saturday, a US faith-based aid group said that a US nurse and her child had been kidnapped.

The Roi Haiti group said its director's wife, Alix Dorsainvil, and her child were missing. The US State Department said it was aware of the reports and was in contact with Haitian authorities.

Why has it been hard to set up an international mission?

Finding a candidate to lead a mission in Haiti has proved difficult both because of fears the mission might turn into a quagmire, and because the international community is haunted by its past failures when trying to help in Haiti.

Most notably, a previous UN mission in Haiti after a devastating earthquake led to a major cholera outbreak, in a country where the disease had been eradicated.

The disease, brought by Nepalese peacekeepers and released via sewage entering a river, killed roughly 10,000 people.

This might help explain the UN's desire to help set up a non-UN multinational force in the country instead.

Some countries were also reportedly wary of supporting Henry's government, deemed illegitimate by many of its opponents in Haiti after Moise's assassination and with no elections since 2016.

Anti-government protests and other potentially not gang-related unrest is also common in the country.

Source: DW