Another 200 Kenyan police officers have arrived in Haiti under a United Nations-backed mission to try to quell rampant gang violence in the troubled Caribbean nation.
The new batch that arrived on Tuesday brings the total to 400 Kenyan boots on the ground in the violence-ravaged capital of Port-au-Prince, Haitian sources said.
The Kenyan contingent of what is shaping up to be a multinational mission has run into persistent legal challenges in Nairobi, where embattled President William Ruto is simultaneously trying to calm roiling antigovernment protests at home.
More Kenyans are expected to arrive in the coming weeks and months along with police and soldiers from the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica for a total of 2,500 personnel.
The deployment was approved by a UN Security Council resolution in October, only to be delayed by a Kenyan court decision in January that ruled it unconstitutional.
The court said Ruto’s administration had no authority to send officers abroad without a prior bilateral agreement.
While the government secured that agreement with Haiti in March, a small opposition party, Thirdway Alliance Kenya, has filed a lawsuit in another attempt to block it.
The United States had been eagerly seeking a country to lead the mission and is supplying funding and logistical support.
President Joe Biden flatly ruled out putting US boots on the ground in Haiti.
Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the Haiti mission and doubts over its funding, while watchdogs have repeatedly accused Kenyan police of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings.
Haiti has long been rocked by gang violence, but conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
The violence in Port-au-Prince has affected food security and humanitarian aid access, with much of the city in the hands of gangs accused of abuses, including murder, rape, looting and kidnappings.