Kenyan president visits Haiti as it grapples with future of international efforts to fight gangs

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Kenya’s President William Ruto arrived in Haiti on Saturday, claiming that because of a Kenyan police force battling gangs “the country’s security has significantly improved.”

Ruto’s claim was contradicted by a United Nations security expert, who just days earlier warned that violence in the country was worsening as gangs expand their control over the Caribbean nation.

Ruto stepped off the plane, walking passed armed officers on a small patch of red carpet flanked by other officials. He headed to a Kenyan base at the airport where he met with police tasked with battling the gangs and a number of high-ranking Haitian and Canadian officials.

“You have represented the people of Kenya with courage, professionalism, selflessness, compassion and sufficiency,” Ruto told Kenyan police surrounding him as he stood at a podium.

He claimed that Kenyan forces have boosted security infrastructure and allowed displaced Haitians to return home after fleeing violence, though many Haitians say violence is just as bad, if not worse, than it was when the police were deployed in June.

Ruto said he hoped to listen to members of the Kenyan forces deployed and hear about their progress before he heads to New York to meet with U.N. leaders. They are grappling with how to best support resource-strapped Kenyan and Jamaican forces who have struggled to contain the gangs terrorizing the Caribbean nation.

Kenya was the first nation to send forces as part of a larger effort by the U.N. to offer international support to Haiti, which has spiraled into conflict and political turmoil since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

About 400 Kenyan police are in Haiti. Earlier this month, about two dozen police and soldiers from Jamaica arrived in the country. But the United States and other countries have said that the forces aren’t enough and lack resources to take on gangs, which control about 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Meanwhile, U.N. human rights expert William O’Neill, who visited Haiti this week, warned Friday that gang violence is only spreading across Haiti and that Haiti’s National Police still lack the “logistical and technical capacity” to fight gangs, which continue to encroach on new territory.

“Humanitarian consequences are dramatic,” he said, and warned of galloping inflation, a lack of basic goods and ”internally displaced people further increasing the vulnerability of the population, particularly children and women.”

The security mission is expected to reach a total of 2,500 personnel, with the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin and Chad also pledging to send police and soldiers, although it wasn’t clear when that would happen.

While the U.S. has floated the idea of a U.N. peacekeeping force, the idea would be far-fetched and controversial given the introduction of cholera and sexual abuse cases that occurred the last time U.N. troops were in Haiti.

Ruto’s visit also comes days after Haiti created a provisional electoral council long sought by the international community to facilitate the first general election held in the country since 2016.

In the power vacuum left by Moïse’s assassination, gangs have only seized more power. Many hope a general election will help restore order to Haiti alongside the peacekeeping mission.

Evens Sanon, The Associated Press