Kenya's President William Ruto has promised to complete the deployment of a Kenyan-led stabilisation force in Haiti by January, as Haiti's leader suggests boosting the intervention into a larger UN peacekeeping mission.
"Kenya will deploy the additional contingent towards attaining the target of all the 2,500 police officers by January next year," Ruto told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
"Kenya and other Caribbean and African countries are ready to deploy, but are hindered by insufficient equipment, logistics and funding," he added.
Ruto also called on member states to "stand in solidarity with the people of Haiti by providing necessary support".
The three-month-old security force to combat spiralling insecurity in the Caribbean nation is currently spearheaded by a Kenyan-led multinational policing operation. Changing it into a UN-mandated force would require a Security Council vote.
Criminal gangs control more than 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince, as well as key roads around the country.
UN force?
Edgard Leblanc Fils, the head of the transitional council currently governing Haiti, told the UN General Assembly this week he "would like to see a thought being given to transforming the security support mission into a peacekeeping mission under the mandate of the United Nations".
Leblanc Fils said that such a change would allow for the challenge of funding the mission to be resolved, while helping "to strengthen the commitment of member states to security in Haiti".
"I am convinced that this change of status, whilst recognising that the errors of the past cannot be repeated, would guarantee the full success of the mission in Haiti," he said.
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, deployed from 2004 to 2017, was tarnished by accusations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers and the force's accidental introduction of cholera, which killed some 10,000 people.
The United States has also backed consideration of putting the new force under the UN flag to ensure a predictable source of funding.
But the move faces daunting odds in the Security Council, where China and Russia hold veto power.
'We're nowhere near winning'
A draft UN Security Council resolution extending the mandate of the security mission contains a call "to consider" transforming the deployment into a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission and is due to be debated Monday.
Haiti's interim Prime Minister Garry Conille warned Wednesday that "we're nowhere near winning this" as he stressed the battle against the gangs would not be successful without outside help.
On Wednesday, the United States announced the disbursement of $160 million of additional aid for Haiti, bringing the total amount of US aid to the country to $1.3 billion since 2021.
Leblanc Fils said Haiti still needed "much more in terms of personnel and also equipment to be able to solve the security problems and allow elections to take place".
Washington has also announced sanctions against two Haitians linked to the country's powerful gangs.
(with AFP)
