PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Kenya sent more than 200 police officers to Haiti on Saturday, providing backup to an understaffed security mission in the Caribbean country where rampant gang violence has displaced more than a million people.
Some 10 countries have together pledged over 3,100 troops for Haiti as part of a U.N.-backed anti-gang force, but few have so far deployed.
Kenya’s Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said the new group comprised 217 police from Kenya, who would join about 400 officers sent last year.
“Our commitment to this historic mission is unwavering and we will continue to mobilise all the necessary international support for it to succeed,” he said in a social media post.
Kenya has led the effort to staff the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, originally promising to deploy a total of 1,000 people.
However, Reuters reported last month that nearly 20 people in the initial deployment submitted letters of resignation from the anti-gang mission due to pay delays and poor conditions.
The MSS in Haiti, which is led by top Kenyan police officers, said in response that its offers had received their salaries, and that it had not received resignations.
The nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Jamaica and Belize have also contributed officers to the anti-gang effort.
(Reporting by Harold Isaac, Writing by Daina Beth Solomon, editing by Deepa Babington)
