A Kenyan police officer is missing in Haiti after a confrontation with criminal gangs.
The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti
said Wednesday the officer went missing on Tuesday, March 25, in the evening.
A statement said the incident happened after a vehicle the team
was using got stuck in a ditch while on patrol in Port-au-Prince’s Pont-Sonde
Area.
“As a result of the incident, one MSS Kenyan contingent officer
remains unaccounted for. Specialized teams have been deployed to conduct a
search and determine his whereabouts,” a statement said.
The statement explained that a Haitian National Police (HNP) armored
vehicle on patrol along the Carrefour Paye-Savien Main Supply Route in the
Pont-Sonde area, Artibonite Department, got stuck in a ditch—suspected to have
been deliberately dug by gangs.
In response, two MSS Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles from Pont-Sonde were dispatched to assist in the recovery.
Unfortunately, during the recovery operation, one of the MRAPs also got stuck,
while the other developed a mechanical issue, the statement said.
As the rescue teams attempted to resolve the situation, suspected
gang members lying in wait launched an attack.
It was then that the team fought off, and when the guns had gone silent, one
officer was found missing, officials said.
It is believed a number of the criminal gangs were injured, some
fatally.
No more details were available on the mission.
The incident comes a week after another senior Kenyan police
officer was shot in the head as he was on an operation in the same area.
He remains in critical condition in the hospital, officials said
after the March 18 incident.
On February 23, Constable Samuel Tompoi Kaetuai was shot dead in the same area while in an operation.
The team on the ground has vowed to continue fighting the gangs.
Kenya has deployed at least 800 police officers under the MSS mission
to Haiti to help in combating gangs.
The current mission is expected to have a total of 2,500
personnel, with the Bahamas, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad
also pledging to send police and soldiers
Haiti is sinking deeper into crisis as gangs tighten their
stranglehold on the country, now controlling more than 85 percent of the
capital, Port-au-Prince.
Haiti has a long and fraught history of
prolonged foreign interventions that have failed to secure lasting political
stability, and the current crisis is no exception.
Experts argue that international actors must
rethink how they allocate their efforts and resources in Haiti to support the country’s path to stabilization.
Gangs in Haiti have steadily expanded their
control of the country since the 2023 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse,
seizing the power vacuum left in his wake. The crisis deepened in April 2024
when acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned, paving the way for a
transitional government. But the U.S.-backed Transitional Council has since
struggled to stabilize the country or move it closer to presidential elections.
In a bid to restore order to the increasingly
insecure state, the U.S. and Kenya entered into a defense agreement in 2023 to
deploy Kenyan troops to Port-au-Prince.
But since their delayed arrival to the capital
in June 2024, the Kenyan troops haven’t made meaningful progress in curbing gang violence.
Officials say the mission’s shortcomings
underscore a broader issue: foreign intervention in Haiti has lacked the
strategic planning necessary to address the root causes of the crisis, both in
the short and long term.
One major obstacle is that the mission is
operating well below its already limited capacity.
This violence has displaced over a million Haitians, according to the UN’s migration agency.
Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and the emergence of a food security crisis.
More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in the Caribbean nation in 2024, and more than a million people have fled their homes.
