Another 217 Kenyan police officers off to Haiti

Kenya said Saturday it was sending another 217 police officers to Haiti to bolster a multinational force seeking to restore order to the violence-ridden Caribbean island.

Criminal gangs still control some 85 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince, the United Nations estimates, despite the deployment last June of the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) under UN auspices.

"The 217 officers will reinforce the first batch of 400 officers who were deployed last year to the Caribbean nation to restore peace," Kenya's Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said in a statement.

"The Kenya-led mission has made tremendous progress in reducing gang violence, earning praise across the globe, including from both the outgoing and incoming US administrations," he added.

Gang violence killed at least 5,601 people in Haiti last year, about a thousand more than in 2023, the UN said. More than a million Haitians have been forced to flee their homes, three times as many as a year ago.

Kenyan President William Ruto said last September that some 2,500 police officers would eventually be deployed.

The UN Security Council in September 2024 extended the mission's mandate without discussing putting it under direct UN control, as requested by many Haitian authorities.

Rights groups have criticised Kenya's deployment for alleged excessive use of force by its officers during last June's anti-government protests that left several dozen dead in the east African country.