NAIROBI (Reuters) -A contingent of 144 additional Kenyan police arrived in the Haitian capital on Thursday, part of a U.N.-backed Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission that aims to support local police battling powerful gangs, Kenya’s government announced on X.
Kenyan President William Ruto wrote on X that he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and praised what he described as the specific exemption to MSS funding from a broader freeze on U.S. government assistance.
Violent gangs, armed with weapons largely trafficked from the United States, have united in the Caribbean country’s capital Port-au-Prince under a common alliance and now control most of the city. They have also been expanding their control to nearby areas.
Earlier this week, the United Nations warned that over $13 million in U.S. funding for the security force had been frozen under President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on foreign aid.
The MSS mission, while backed by the U.N. Security Council, is not a United Nations operation and currently relies on voluntary contributions. The mission has so far made little progress toward helping Haiti restore order.
(Reporting by Hereward Holland in Nairobi; Editing by David Alire Garcia)
