The president of Kenya visited Port-au-Prince on Saturday for his first tour of the base where an understaffed and ill-equipped contingent of nearly 400 of his country’s police officers are attempting to bring peace to Haiti, nearly seven months after a gang uprising took thousands of lives and toppled the government.
The visit by the president, William Ruto, came amid a bleak backdrop. The recent kidnapping of two Filipino sailors put a halt to cargo shipments by sea, the capital’s downtown streets are still deserted and even Haiti’s prime minister cannot use his own office, because it is in a gang-controlled area.
A top United Nations human rights expert on Friday called the humanitarian crisis in Haiti “an enduring agony” and said gangs had moved to areas outside the capital.
The Kenyan officers, who arrived in late June, are nowhere to be seen.
An operation that aims to take back the capital from the grip of violent gangs with 2,500 officers from around the world at this point has just 400 police members. The equipment and resources they have been allocated are insufficient, said William O’Neill, the U.N. human rights expert, who concluded a visit to Port-au-Prince on Saturday.
“His police are doing all they can with what they have,” Mr. O’Neill said. “But what they have is not adequate to the task. They need helicopters, night vision goggles, drones and more reliable armed vehicles. They also need reinforcements from other countries, especially those that have promised to contribute to the effort.”
The U.N. Security Council authorized the operation, known as the Multinational Security Support Mission, or M.S.S., last October amid an increase in gang violence. The United States pledged more than $300 million to finance it, and Jamaica sent a small contingent, but besides the Biden administration, only Canada has contributed to the effort.
The situation worsened earlier this year when several rival gangs united to attack government offices, hospitals, police stations, prisons and some entire neighborhoods. Ariel Henry, who was prime minister at the time, was unable to return to Haiti from a visit to Kenya and was forced to resign this spring as the gangs demanded he step down and the airport remained closed for two months.
In the first five months of the year, more than 3,000 people were killed, according to the United Nations.
The airport reopened in May, and gangs largely retreated from some Port-au-Prince neighborhoods. But they have gained control in other cities and continue kidnapping people and charging extortion for travel on major highways.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians forced out of their homes are living in school buildings and other public places. Not even a third of the medical services are operating at capacity, Mr. O’Neill said.
Romain Le Cour, a senior expert at the Global Initiative, a research organization based in Geneva, said the effort had been complicated by tensions between the force and the Haiti National Police, and by a lack of coordination and equipment.
“It is urgent for the M.S.S. to match rhetoric with reality,” Mr. Le Cour said Saturday while visiting the capital. “So far, the people of Port-au-Prince are seeing no tangible change on the ground linked to the force’s presence.”
To succeed, it needs “real strategic, operational and financial direction,” he said.
The State Department has said it plans to ask the United Nations to extend the mission’s mandate.
Mr. Ruto’s visit, timed to coincide with his trip to the U.N. General Assembly this coming week in New York, came amid his own troubles.
Plagued by protests in Kenya demanding his resignation, he recently struck a deal to name opposition party members to his cabinet in a quest to quell calls for his ouster.
Protests took place at universities and schools, and even the main international airport was shut down for a day this month as aviation workers protested what they called a secretive deal to renovate the airport by an Indian conglomerate.
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