The UN-backed peacekeeping force in Haiti requires additional resources, and its funding is set to expire in March 2025, according to the leaders of Kenya and Haiti, who recently made this request to their international allies.
Nearly 400 cops have been supplied by Kenya, which is leading the effort to stop gang violence in the Caribbean country. Almost two dozen Jamaican police officers and soldiers joined them, but their numbers still pale in comparison to the 2,500 that other nations, such as Chad, Benin, Bangladesh, and Barbados, had promised to send for the expedition.
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The UN has received $68 million of the $85 million in promises for the operation; Kenyan President William Ruto said that his country will send 600 more officers next month during a meeting with Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille on Friday in Nairobi.
Ruto stated, “We have a window of success that is evident from the operations that have been carried out already.”
To make sure the “contingent from Kenya has the resources they need,” Conille encouraged allies abroad to dispatch the police they had promised.
Conille reported that the Kenyan commander encouraged him daily, telling him that the war against Haiti’s gangs “is winnable.”
Following the killing of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021, the gangs in Haiti have gained strength and are now thought to hold up to 80% of the country’s capital. Violent insurrection by citizen vigilante organizations is the result of an increase in homicides, sexual assaults, and kidnappings.
Early in October, the United Nations Security Council unanimously decided to extend the mandate of the multinational force commanded by Kenya, rejecting a request by Haiti to begin negotiations on converting it into a UN peacekeeping operation.
