Kenyan police in Haiti suffer more casualties in clashes with gangs

By Edwin Okoth

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Two Kenyan constabulary officers successful Haiti person been earnestly injured successful clashes with gangs implicit the past week, 3 officers told Reuters, adding to the mission's increasing database of casualties arsenic it comes nether progressively predominant attack.

Kenya archetypal deployed officers past June to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, which presently has astir 1,000 information personnel, astir three-quarters of them from Kenya.

The mission, aimed astatine restoring capable information for Haiti to clasp elections by February 2026, has faced morale issues astir from the commencement and uncertainty astir its imaginable enlargement amid escalating pack violence.

It suffered its archetypal fatality successful February, and the MSS reported different Kenyan serviceman missing past week. The 3 officers, who asked not to beryllium named for fearfulness of reprisal, said helium was believed to beryllium dead.

They said the 2 injuries came during regular patrols successful and astir the superior Port-au-Prince, which is mostly controlled by heavy equipped gangs blamed for thousands of deaths since 2021.

MSS spokesperson Jack Ombaka confirmed 2 officers had been evacuated to the Dominican Republic for aesculapian care.

"As successful immoderate mission, casualties are sometimes unavoidable," helium said.

The 3 officers said the gangs were attacking them connected an progressively regular ground and complained that their instrumentality was inadequate.

They said 1 of the officers was changeable successful the caput aft a slug pierced his helmet and the different was deed successful the receptor erstwhile a gunshot penetrated the walls of an armoured vehicle.

Twenty armoured vehicles person been grounded since this play aft officers refused to usage them, complaining that this was the 2nd clip a conveyance had failed to halt a bullet, the 3 officers said.

An MSS delegation plans to question to Washington this week to contiguous concerns implicit the prime of protective cogwheel to U.S. officials, 2 elder MSS officers told Reuters.

The United States has provided astir of the backing and instrumentality for the mission, which has struggled to unafraid important contributions from different countries.

Kenya's authorities has cited humanitarian reasons for its involution successful Haiti, though analysts accidental the deployment is besides motivated by a tendency to boost the country's planetary illustration and triumph favour with the United States.

Asked astir concerns astir the equipment, Ombaka said: "MSS continues to person accrued logistical enactment from partners and stakeholders, with assurances that each instrumentality meets planetary standards."

The U.S. State Department did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

(Reporting by Edwin Okoth; Editing by Aaron Ross and Aidan Lewis)