The Kenyan police team in Haiti is undergoing a one-month linguistic and intercultural training classes to enhance their operations in the Caribbean nation.
The team will get classes for French and Haitian Creole, which are the languages of the Haitian institutions and population.
The Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission Force Commander Godfrey Otunge officially launched the linguistic and intercultural capacities development in Port-au-Prince on August 5.
He said this will help the personnel carry out their mandate. The language barrier had been identified as a hindrance to their work.
“Moving forward, language barrier will be a thing of the past as police officers will be capacitated with skills, knowledge and competence to communicate and interact with local Haitian who have welcomed them in the country,” said Otunge.
Kenya police are in Haiti to help the local officials stabilize from gangs that had almost overrun the capital.
The training is sponsored and spearheaded by the French government through its Embassy in Haiti, officials said.
Officials said they have realized the training is necessary to help the personnel work without any hindrance.
On October 2, 2023, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution (UNSCR 2699) authorizing the deployment, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, of a non-UN Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti, for an initial period of 12 months.
Their mandate is to support the efforts of the Haitian National Police (PNH) to re-establish security in Haiti and build security conditions conducive to holding free and fair elections.
While French and Haitian Creole are the languages of the Haitian institutions and population with which the MMS will interact, several States that have expressed the possibility of contributing to the mission are not French-speaking and/or Creole-speaking.
The aim is to improve the performance of all the mission’s personnel, as well as its interaction with the host country in order to develop a relationship of trust.
With the support of France and other countries, different initiatives have been carried out in coordination with the UN, which identified language needs, Otunge said.
The teaching of creole and French is being implemented in partnership with the Institutes français, the Alliances françaises and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
The UN Human Rights also took the team through the compliance framework, which aims at integrating human rights and international humanitarian law principles into the planning, conduct, and evaluation of security operations.
The officers were also taken through international standards and good practices on the use of force particularly relating to the MSS mission in Haiti.
On July 30, a Kenyan police officer in Haiti was shot and wounded in a confrontation with gangs in Port-au-Prince.
A team on patrol along the National Hospital-APN Sea Port road when they noticed a lorry that was being attacked and looted by suspected gangsters.
Otunge said the team noticed that the gang had shot dead the driver as they looted the track that was loaded with bags of rice.
“The patrol team immediately engaged the gangs after they started shooting at them.”
“One Kenyan contingent sustained a gunshot injury on the shoulder in the process and was evacuated to Life Support Area (LSA) Hospital for management,” said Otunge.
He said the officers sustained an injury to the left acromioclavicular joint with soft tissue injuries.
Officials said at least five gang members were killed in the clash.
Otunge however said the gangs escaped with serious, life-threatening injuries, disappearing in the tall buildings they were shooting from.
This came a day after the team and their local ones engaged gangs in a gun drama as Prime Minister Garry Conille visited a hospital on July 29 in Port-au-Prince.
Apart from Kenya, other countries that have pledged to send officers to Haiti include Benin, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Algeria, Canada and France.
The team has so far taken over the local port, roads, hospital and other critical infrastructure that were initially under the gangs.
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