Kenya promises full Haiti deployment by January amid calls for UN mission

RFI

27 September 2024 at 5:52 am·1-min read

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".

"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.

(with AFP)

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UN force?

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