Kenyan Police officers sent to Haiti for the Multinational Security Support Mission clashed this Wednesday for the first time with gang members while patrolling in armored vehicles around the National Palace.
In addition to these clashes, Kenyan police have also carried out an operation against suspects on Pavée Street, on the outskirts of the city of Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, where a shooting has also been reported, according to the newspaper ‘Gazzete’. Haiti’.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister of Haiti, Garry Conille, has assured that his Government will announce a state of emergency in 14 communes controlled by gang members, whom he has once again urged to lay down their arms and recognize state authority.
In addition, he has promised to eradicate the gangs in a “long fight” but that “the people will not lose”, which is why he has asked for the people’s support of the law enforcement forces, in addition to recommending that they be “attentive and vigilant” in a speech collected by the AlterPresse news agency.
There are already 600 Kenyan police officers who have arrived in the country to help the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) establish order and security in the country in order to restore democratic normality, and Haiti has not had a president since the beginning. July 2021, a group of armed individuals broke into his official residence to assassinate him. Shortly after, Ariel Henry ascended to the position of prime minister amid criticism and after several years of instability. In March of this year he resigned after the wave of violence that shook the Caribbean nation.
Since then, a Haitian Transitional Presidential Council has been established, led by the former top representative of the Haitian Senate between 1995 and 2000, Edgard Leblanc. This has chosen former Prime Minister Garry Conille (2011-2012) as the new head of the transitional government. The objective is to temporarily cover the political vacuum in a stage that should conclude with the holding of elections in 2026, a decade after the last elections.
