A Kenyan police team will leave for Haiti on June 25 to lead a UN-backed mission to tackle gang violence, sources said.
This came as Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome appointed a new commander for the more than 2,500 police officers to be deployed in the Haiti operation.
Head of operations at the Administration Police Service (APS) Senior Assistant Inspector General of Police (SAIG) Godfrey Otunge will lead the team as the commander.
He will replace his boss, the Deputy Inspector General of (APS) Noor Gabow who will now take the coordination role from Nairobi.
Koome also appointed General Service Unit’s head of operations Commissioner Stephen Chebet to join the team as the head of operations.
The two are well trained and experienced to lead the mission, officials said.
An advance team has already left for Haiti ahead of the official arrival of more personnel.
Gabow will be the coordinator from Nairobi in training and building capacity of the team and those in Haiti National Police.
The team of about 400 officers has been cleared to depart Nairobi anytime, officials said.
Kenya, which is leading the 2,500-member security force, has agreed with the Haitian government on rules of engagement for the security personnel, who could face fierce opposition from the well-armed Haitian gangs that have taken over the country’s capital and overwhelmed local police. More than 1,000 police officers will join other teams in deploying to Haiti to fight gangs terrorizing locals. Apart from Kenya, other countries that will send officers to Haiti are Chile, Jamaica, Grenada, Paraguay, Burundi, Chad, Nigeria and Mauritius.
“The departure is this week on Tuesday,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
“Preparations are set for the team to depart for Haiti on Tuesday. We already have two advance teams that left. One left last week and another one Saturday,” a senior police official said who added the team in Haiti will prepare the ground for arrival of the bigger one.
President William Ruto will flag off the team on Monday.
This came as Haiti’s new government announced the appointment of Rameau Normil, a police divisional commissioner, as director general of the Haitian National Police (PNH). The decree officializing Normil’s appointment was signed by the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) members and Prime Minister Garry Conille following a council of ministers meeting at the Villa d’Accueil on June 19.
He was sworn to office on Friday June 21.
Normil steps into the role fraught with challenges, replacing Frantz Elbé, whose tenure has been widely criticized for failing to curb the rampant gang violence that has gripped the nation.
A UN Security Council resolution in October approved the mission.
The government secured that agreement on March 1 but a small opposition party in Kenya has filed a fresh lawsuit to try to block it.
The United States is providing funding and logistical support, but not boots on the ground in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.
Haiti has long been rocked by gang violence but conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then prime minister Ariel Henry.
Henry announced in early March that he would step down and hand over executive power to a transitional council, which named Garry Conille as the country’s interim prime minister on May 29.
The violence in Port-au-Prince has affected food security and humanitarian aid access, with much of the city in the hands of gangs accused of abuses including murder, rape, looting and kidnappings.
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