Kenya signs agreement to send police to Haiti
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya and Haiti signed agreements Friday to try to salvage a plan for the African country to deploy 1,000 police officers to the troubled Caribbean nation to help combat gang violence that has surged to unprecedented levels.
Kenya agreed in October to lead a U.N.-authorized international police force to Haiti, but the Kenyan High Court in January ruled the plan unconstitutional, in part because of a lack of reciprocal agreements between the two countries.
Kenya’s President William Ruto said in a statement that he and Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry witnessed the signing of the reciprocal agreements between the two countries on Friday.
It was not immediately clear how, or if, the agreements could circumvent the court’s ruling, which also said that Kenya’s National Police Service cannot be deployed outside the country.
Kenyan opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, who filed the High Court petition against the deployment, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Henry has no constitutional or legal powers to commit Haiti to any agreements with Kenya.
In a public lecture at the United States International University in Kenya on Friday, Henry said elections in his country need to be held as soon as possible to bring stability.
Henry has repeatedly pledged to hold elections since being sworn in as prime minister and interim president after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. But he and other officials say gang violence has not allowed them to move forward on those promises.
Henry shrugged when asked if it was safe for him to return home from Kenya following a surge of gang violence in Haiti’s capital on Thursday.
Haitian police were overwhelmed by a series of coordinated violent attacks by gang members across the capital in which four officers were killed, a national police spokesperson said Friday.
The attacks Thursday in Port-au-Prince were led by gunmen who opened fire on targets including Haiti’s international airport and seized control of two police stations, prompting people to flee dozens of communities in fear as schools and businesses closed.
“The situation yesterday was horrible,” spokesperson Garry Desrosiers said in an interview with Radio Caraibes. “The city center was at war.”
Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation known as G9 and Family and Allies, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
He said the objective was to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent the return of Henry.
Neither the police chief nor government ministers were injured or captured during Thursday’s attacks.
As of late Friday morning, most of Port-au-Prince remained peaceful as people timidly resumed their routines. The main international airport reopened, but by Friday afternoon, the U.S. Embassy reported heavy gunfire near the airport and said it was temporarily halting all official travel to it.
Meanwhile, the capital’s downtown area was largely deserted as most schools and businesses remained closed.
Desrosiers said the young officers stood up and fought “to guarantee the security of the population,” adding that authorities could not reach the station in time to repel the attack.
He said police faced a lack of logistics and equipment to properly fight the gangs on Thursday, as well as roadblocks that remained in place Friday in dozens of communities preventing officers from responding to attacks.
Haiti’s National Police has roughly 9,000 officers on duty at a time for a country of more than 11 million people, according to the U.N. The officers are routinely overwhelmed and outgunned by powerful gangs estimated to control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.