A contingent of 400 Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti,Tuesday, marking over 18 months since then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry initially requested a security force from the United Nations to help restore order in the violence-ridden nation.
Kenya has offered to send 1,000 police to stabilise Haiti, alongside forces from several other countries, but the deployment has run into persistent legal troubles.
Interior minister Kithure Kindiki said in a statement: "Honoured to see off the first batch of the contingent of the National Police Service officers who are part of the historic United Nations Mission to Haiti," accompanied by images of the officers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
The group comprises elite officers from the Rapid Deployment Unit, General Service Unit, Administration Police, and Kenya Police.
🇰🇪 🇭🇹 Some four hundred police officers have left #Kenya for #Haiti on Tuesday to tackle gang violence on a UN-backed mission.
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 25, 2024
Kenya has offered to send a total of a thousand officers, despite legal challenges brought by the opposition, as @carysgarland explains 👇 pic.twitter.com/scwStZ1tdQ
The deployment came hours after President William Ruto – an enthusiastic backer of the mission – bid a ceremonial goodbye to the officers on Monday.
Media was not invited to the ceremony in Nairobi where Ruto prayed for the officers and handed them a Kenyan national flag, according to the footage shared by the presidency.
"This mission is one of the most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity," Ruto told the officers in quotes shared by his office.
"Your presence in Haiti will bring hope and relief to communities torn apart by violence and ravaged by disorder," he said, adding that the rest of the force will join their colleagues "soon".
'Circumventing' the law
The deployment was approved by a UN Security Council resolution in October, only to be delayed by a Kenyan court decision in January.
The court said Ruto's administration had no authority to send officers abroad without a prior bilateral agreement.
While the government secured that agreement with Haiti in March, a small opposition party – Thirdway Alliance Kenya – filed a fresh lawsuit in another attempt to block it.
The party's leader, Ekuru Aukot, has said that he intends to "seek an injunctive order against the deployment".
"There is an active ongoing court case. So William Ruto is circumventing that because he does not believe in the rule of law," he said, describing the Kenyan leader as "a slave of America".
Hopes and fears
The United States had been eagerly seeking a country to lead the mission and is supplying funding and logistical support.
But President Joe Biden flatly ruled out US boots on the ground in Haiti – the poorest nation in the Americas – where Washington has a history of intervention.
Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the Haiti mission and doubts over its funding, while watchdogs have repeatedly accused Kenyan police of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings.
A senior police official defended the force's record, saying they were an elite team that had gone through extra training.
Other countries that have expressed willingness to join the mission include Benin, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, and Chad.
