Kenyan Police Officer Deployed to Tackle Gangs in Haiti Killed

A Kenyan police officer was killed in Haiti on Sunday in an operation that was part of the international effort to help combat gang violence and restore order to the Caribbean nation, officials said.

It appears to be the first death of a Kenyan officer working as part of the Multinational Security Support Mission, the international contingent that has been deployed in the Caribbean nation since June. The force is mostly made of Kenyan officers.

The officer was injured during an operation in the Artibonite region, north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Sunday, the Multinational Security Support Mission said in a statement on social media. The officer, who was not identified, was airlifted to the hospital but died later in the day, the mission said. It did not give a cause of death.

Hundreds of Kenyan police officers have been stationed in Haiti since June as part of a U.S.-sponsored mission to restore order. Since 2022, Haiti’s prime minister had appealed for a foreign armed intervention to help stop the rampant gang violence that has upended the nation.

The Multinational Security Support Mission, which also includes officers from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, was deployed to Haiti to try to wrest control of Port-au-Prince from well-armed and highly organized Haitian gangs that had seized control of much of the capital.

This is a developing story that will be updated.