Haiti gangs: Kenyan police officer killed on duty
A Kenyan police officer who was on patrol with the international security force in Haiti has been killed in a confrontation with gang members.The officer is the first casualty suffered by the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission (MSS).The force was sent to Haiti in June last year to help restore order to the country, where gangs have seized control of almost the entire capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as large swathes of rural areas. More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.
On patrol with Kenyan forces inside Haiti's gang warzoneThe commander of the multinational force, Gen Godfrey Otunge, said the Kenyan police officer had been injured in Artibonite, a region north of the capital. Gen Otunge said the officer, who has not been named, had been immediately airlifted to hospital, where he died a short while later.Jack Ombaka, the spokesman for the MSS, said in a statement sent to Reuters news agency that the officer was a "fallen hero" who "was killed while fighting for the people of Haiti", while Kenya's foreign ministry said it was "heartbroken by the loss" of the officer. Mr Ombaka said the officer had been shot by a gang member during a security operation in the town of Pont-Sondé.He added that the multinational force would "pursue these gangs to the last man standing". The MSS was boosted earlier this month by the arrival of an additional 200 Kenyan police officers, but the force is outgunned and outmanned by the gangs, which continue to arm themselves with powerful weapons illegally smuggled from the US.The future of the multinational force - which also has officers from Bahamas, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica among its ranks - was thrown into doubt some weeks ago when the Trump administration ordered a freeze on foreign aid programmes. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later approved a waiver for US funds destined for the MSS and Haiti's National Police, but it is not yet clear whether the US government supports turning the MSS into a UN peacekeeping operation, which would make its funding more secure.
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