Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille is Friday scheduled to meet President William Ruto as part of his four-day official visit to Kenya.
He will also meet police commanders in Kenya who are in charge of a team in his country helping to fight gangs.
Conille, according to plans, will also visit one of the police training camps where the paramilitary officers are being prepared for deployment.
He arrived in Kenya on Thursday, October 10 amid attacks in Haiti from gangs.
Conille had said he was coming to Kenya to fast-track the deployment of 600 more officers to join the 400 who are already in Port-au-Prince.
"One of the aims of this trip is to go to Kenya to discuss with President Ruto how we can speed up the deployment of remnants of the Kenyan troops as quickly as possible to continue supporting the national police force," Conille said before leaving Haiti. Conille said he would discuss with his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates "how we can find regular flows to help the Haitian national police to combat security."
Two weeks ago, the U.N. Security Council authorized for another year an international security force that is intended to help local police fight gangs and provide law and order.
So far, the mission has made little progress in helping Haiti restore order with only about 400 mostly Kenyan police officers on the ground.
Haiti is reeling after members of the Gran Grif gang stormed through the town of Pont-Sonde in the western Artibonite region early on Thursday, October 3, killing at least 115 people, including infants, and forcing over 6,000 residents to flee.
The massacre caused widespread shock even in a country that has grown accustomed to outbreaks of violence, and where the national police force is outgunned and understaffed.
Gunmen invaded another town north of Haiti’s capital on Thursday, shooting at people and setting homes on fire, just a week after a massacre killed at least 115 people in the country’s central region.
The number of casualties was not immediately known.
Residents in the coastal town of Arcahaie called radio stations pleading for help and asking that the police come and save them.
Lionel Lazarre, deputy police spokesman, told Radio Caraïbes that officers were on site and that authorities were taking several measures to strengthen their presence.
“The police heard the people of Arcahaie shouting for help,” he said.
Radio Télé Monopole reported that gunmen attacked the town before dawn, opening fire and wounding multiple people as they set fire to homes, especially those in the Vigner and Bercy communities.
Several radio stations reported that the attack was launched by the gang in the area of Canaan known as the Taliban. The gang has around 200 members and operates mostly in the northern part of the Port-au-Prince capital.
Arcahaie is located between Haiti’s capital and the central town of Pont-Sondé, where another gang, Gran Grif, is accused of killing more than 115 people last Thursday. While most of the gang violence is centred in Port-au-Prince — which is 80% controlled by gangs — it has spread north of the capital in recent years, especially the central Artibonite region.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi who is also the foreign affairs Cabinet Secretary welcomed Conille at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Thursday.
According to Mudavadi, Conille is expected to hold high-level bilateral talks with President William Ruto surrounding strengthening security cooperation and fostering partnerships that promote regional stability between Kenya and Haiti.
Kenya police are in Haiti to help in containing the gangs there.
In his tour of Port-au-Prince on September, 21, President Ruto to the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission being converted to a full U.N. peacekeeping operation.
"On the suggestion to transit this into a fully U.N. Peacekeeping mission, we have absolutely no problem with it, if that is the direction the U.N. security council wants to take," Ruto said.
The UN-authorised mission that is led by Kenya faces a funding inadequacy as member states who committed to contribute $ 84 million (Sh10.8 billion) have so far contributed $67 million (Sh8.6 billion).
The said contributions from member states have been made through the UN Trust Fund for the MSS.
The mission is expected to comprise up to 2,500 police personnel, deployed in phases, at an annual cost of approximately $600 million.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres last month hailed Kenya, Belize and Jamaica for deploying personnel to restore calm in the Caribbean nation.