- The team will join an advanced one that arrived in Haiti on June 25 and embarked on recce missions.
- They will man hospitals, airports, ports, the presidential palace and the national highways.
A second batch of Kenya police left Nairobi for Haiti to help fight gangs that had almost overrun the Caribbean nation.
The team of 200 well-trained officers left Nairobi on Monday, July 15 night aboard a UN chartered flight and was scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday at 10 am Kenyan time.
The outgoing Deputy Inspector General of the Administration Police, the coordinator of the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, Noor Gabow, and the acting DIG James Kamau were present to see off the team.
MSS is an international police force approved by the United Nations Security Council on 2 October 2023 to assist the government of Haiti in restoring law and order amid worsening civil strife and gang violence since 2018.
Gabow told the team to deliver the mandate and never fail Kenya and the region.
“I know you are ready for the mission. Go and help the Haitians stand up and take off. They are good people,” said Gabow.
The team will join an advanced one that arrived in Haiti on June 25 and embarked on recce missions.
They will man hospitals, airports, ports, the presidential palace and the national highways.
After weeks of planning and learning on the ground, the team helped the Haitian police recapture a national hospital that had been occupied by gangs there.
Haiti's newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille and Haiti's police chief visited the country's largest hospital on Tuesday, July 9, after authorities said they took control of the medical institution on July 7 from armed gangs.
Haitian Police Chief Normil Rameau told a news conference that police took control of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, known as the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, on Sunday night after months of escalating attacks from armed groups.
"Haitians will wake up one morning and find the operation done, the bandits stopped, and neutralized," Rameau said at the briefing.
He was accompanied by the commander of the Kenyan team Godfrey Otunge, who said that the U.N.-backed contingent of Kenyan police intends to work closely with Haitian authorities as well as local and international partners dedicated to rebuilding Haiti.
The green and white-coloured hospital was left ravaged by gangs, with beds stripped of their cots and ceiling fans on the floor.
The building's interior was left with debris and lighting fixtures among the hospital's cubicles.
Hospital walls and nearby buildings were riddled with bullet holes, signalling fights between police and gangs in the neighbourhood.
The hospital is just across the street from the National Palace, which was the scene of several battles in the last five months.
Conille said the building looked like "a war zone."Council member Louis Gérald Gilles was also present on Tuesday's visit and announced the hospital should be in full service by February 2026.
Conille said the hospital served about 1,500 people a day before the gang's chokehold.
"This hospital is not for the rich, it's for the poor. These are people that need serious help that can't go see a private doctor."
The attacks from criminal groups have pushed Haiti's health system to the brink of collapse and the escalating violence has led to a surge in patients with serious illnesses and a shortage of resources to treat them.
Gangs have been looting, setting fires and destroying medical institutions and pharmacies in the capital, where they control up to 80 per cent of the area.
Haiti's health care system, already struggling before the violence, faces additional challenges from the rainy season, which is likely to worsen conditions and increase the risk of water-borne diseases.
Poor hygiene conditions in camps and makeshift settlements have heightened the risk of diseases like cholera, with over 84,000 suspected cases in the country, according to a UNICEF report.
Besides the hospital, gunmen have seized police stations, attacked the main international airport (which was closed for nearly three months), and stormed Haiti's two largest prisons.
According to a report from the U.N. migration agency, the violence in Haiti has displaced nearly 580,000 people since March.
But since the arrival of Kenyan police, the police had also managed to recapture the Gressier Police Station and security officers had taken control of several areas.
Rameau further revealed the development of new strategies to track down criminals and enhance citizen security with the help of Kenyan officers and local authorities.
"The community must understand that the period of leniency is over and we are actively working to restore security," he said.
"With the support of the MSS and the entire HNP, we are regaining lost territory and ensuring that security is a national priority."
Apart from Kenya, other countries that have pledged to send officers to Haiti include Benin, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Algeria, Canada and France.