- They will also meet parliamentary teams, which will have to play a role in case a decision is made to send the police to the troubled Haiti.
- These include identification of the team to be recruited, training them, kitting the team, funding them and dispatching them to Haiti.
Image: HANDOUT
A Kenyan security team on an assessment mission to Haiti arrived back in the country Sunday ahead of a planned series of meetings with authorities.
The team plans to brief President William Ruto on their findings before a decision is made on the way forward, sources said.
They will also meet parliamentary teams, which will have to play a role in case a decision is made to send the police to the troubled Haiti.
A series of events are planned if a decision is made to send police to combat the gang violence that has wrecked the Caribbean nation.
These include identification of the team to be recruited, training them, kitting the team, funding them and dispatching them to Haiti.
While in Haiti, the team met Prime Minister Ariel Henry, members of his government and leaders of the High Council of the Transition (HTC) on their tour of the country.
This comes ahead of the planned deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to combat the gang violence that has wrecked the Caribbean nation.
Kenya will lead an international police force aimed for the mission to begin probably in a month.
The delegation was in Haiti up to Wednesday to understand the degradation of security of the country.
The delegation also visited the top brass of the Haitian National Police (PNH) for a working session on the security situation and weakness of the agency, officials said.
They also on August 22 met the police chief Frantz Elbe among others.
The Haitian media said the team was also taken around the capital in Port-au-Prince and other sites affected by the gangs.
The force is meant to assist Haiti’s understaffed and under-resourced police department, with only about 10,000 officers for the nation’s more than 11 million people.
“We are here to assess the needs of the National Police of Haiti, better understand the situation and do our best to help the Haitian people,” said George Orina an official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Deputy Inspector General of Administration Police Noor Gabow led the team.
Before arriving in Haiti on Sunday, the Kenyan delegation met with countries and groups in New York that are trying to decide how best to help Haiti.
From January 1 until August 15, more than 2,400 people in Haiti were reported killed, more than 950 kidnapped and another 902 injured, according to the most recent U.N. statistics.
The Kenyan officials said the countries they met understand “the Haitian demands and the urgent need to put an end to a situation which is paralysing the functioning of the country and putting the future of its citizens in danger.”
Henry's government first requested international security assistance last October, but despite repeated calls from the United Nations, the call went unanswered until Kenya said it was prepared to lead such a force last month.
After the Kenyan assessment, the plan to send a security force to Haiti will pass a vote at the U.N. Security Council.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called for the planned multinational force to include safeguards to prevent abuses.
Previous interventions left behind a devastating cholera epidemic, as well as over a hundred allegations of sexual abuse.
Countries have also been wary of backing Henry's unelected government.
Henry, who is facing international pressure to broaden political consensus and include more people in decision-making, has in turn pledged to hold elections once security is re-established.
The government statement said Henry had reiterated the need to establish free movement of people and goods and that lessons had been learned from previous missions in Haiti.
"Kenyan troops benefit from much experience, having served in places such as Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Somalia, Sudan and Angola," it said.
Other regional countries have pledged to send their police officers to make it 2,000 strong force.
Henry said on August 7 that he spoke with President William Ruto to thank Kenya for the “demonstration of fraternal solidarity.”
The Caribbean nation is suffering from a surge in gang violence and is in a deep security, political and humanitarian crisis.
As the search continued, gang warfare continued to worsen, leading to a wave of hundreds of kidnappings and the emergence of vigilantes taking justice into their own hands.
Today, armed groups control an estimated 80 percent of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.