A Kenyan police officer who was on patrol with the international security force in Haiti was killed in a confrontation with gang members.
The officer is the first victim suffered by the multinational security support mission led by Kenyan (MSS).
The force was sent to Haiti in June of last year to help restore order to the country, where the gangs took control of almost the whole capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as large areas of zones rural.
More than 5,500 people were killed in violence related to gangs in Haiti in 2024 and more than a million people fled their house.
The commander of the multinational force, General Godfrey Otunge, said that the Kenyan police officer had been injured in Arbonite, a region north of the capital.
General Otunge said that the officer, who had not been appointed, was immediately transported by plane to the hospital, where he died shortly later.
Jack Ombaka, MSS spokesman, said in a statement sent to the Reuters news agency that the officer was a “fallen hero” who “had been killed while he was fighting for the inhabitants of Haiti “, while the Kenya Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was” the heart broken by the loss “of the officer.
Ombaka said the officer was killed by a gang member during a security operation in the city of Pont-Sondé.
He added that the multinational force “would continue these gangs to the last standing man”.
The MSS was stimulated earlier this month by the arrival of 200 additional Kenyan police officers, but the force is exceeded and exceeded by the gangs, who continue to arm himself with powerful weapons illegally smuggling from the United States.
The future of multinational force – which also has officers from Bahamas, Belize, Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica among its ranks – was questioned a few weeks ago when the Trump administration ordered a Gel on foreign aid programs.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later approved an exemption from American funds for the MSS and Haiti National Police, but it is not yet clear if the US government supports the MSS transformation into an operation United Nations peacekeeping, which would make its funding safer.
