(Miami Herald)- Long before Guatemala and El Salvador agreed to deploy military forces to join the international armed mission to help Haiti’s beleaguered security forces fight terrorizing gangs, Jamaica raised its hand.
The country, just 118 miles west of Haiti, not only has one of the more experienced militaries in the Caribbean when it comes to taking on criminal gangs alongside police, its defense force has been increasingly focusing on digital threats, which Haitian gangs are rapidly using to announce attacks and show their prowess.
Still, as the security situation in Haiti grows more desperate with gangs expanding their territory to now control as much as 90% of Port-au-Prince, the English-speaking Caribbean nation still hasn’t fully deployed. Nor have The Bahamas, Belize or any of the other Caribbean countries that volunteered to field police and military to the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.
The delay, observers say, is both a matter of funding as well as safety, which hit home Sunday when the mission confirmed its first casualty, a Kenyan police officer. The cop was injured during a firefight with gangs in the Artibonite region north of Port-au-Prince, and died after he was airlifted by members of the Salvadoran army.
The details of what happened have still not been made public. But the dangers that Haiti’s crises continue to pose loomed large last week as the 15-member Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM discussed the ongoing problems in Haiti, a member country.
“The region continues to be committed to ensuring that Haiti is stabilized and that the security situation can be brought into order,” Mia Mottley, Barbados’ prime minister and current CARICOM chair, said during comments at a closing press conference Friday.
month, as the United Nations reported that gang-related violence had led to the killings of more than 5,600 people in 2024 and more than a million are now internally displaced, Barbados became the latest country to publicly back out of deploying a contingent to join the Kenyan mission.
“Our position really has always been that our numbers are better suited in providing the technical support,” Mottley said. “We don’t have the numbers that other countries have with respect to the capacity to offer those boots on the ground.”
The Caribbean forces in Haiti include 31 soldiers and police officers from Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas. Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness said he remains committed to deploying the 200 security personnel he pledged in September. At the time, Holness said the initial group, which include the mission’s deputy force commander, would lay out the command structure and prepare for the future deployment.
“The commitment for troops and other personnel remains,” Holness said. “Jamaica sent a command group to Haiti to assist in the development of logistics and planning. That group is due for rotation. They are there for almost six months. Upon rotation, a larger group will be sent. Possibly double the size, and then shortly thereafter, the full complement that we committed of 200 will be on the ground.”
Holness did not give a timeline on what overall has been a slow deployment of forces. First requested by the Haitian government in October 2022, the Kenyan mission wasn’t authorized by the U.N. Security Council until a year later and the first troops didn’t start deploying until June of 2024.
In that time, armed groups have escalated the violence, launching coordinated attacks against police stations, hospitals and other key government infrastructure, including the airport and seaport.
Though hundreds of additional troops from Kenya, Guatemala and El Salvador have arrived since the start of the year, including the first all-female SWAT unit from Nairobi, to boost the forces on the ground, the mission is still at less than half of the 2,500 personnel originally envisioned.
Though Haiti’s current instability goes as far back as 2017 when gangs carried out a large-scale massacre in the Grand Ravine neighborhood of the capital, the country’s near total plunge into anarchy was precipitated with the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
Holness said it was important to keep in mind that the establishment and preparation for deployment of the mission has not been straightforward.
“We have to ensure that when we deploy issues such as the availability of medevac, the availability of facilities to properly and appropriately house the personnel, that those are in existence. And that may not have always been the case, so we have to build out and deploy troops according to the facilities that are available,” he said.
He was confident, he added, that all the facilities will be available for full deployment.
Earlier this month, Salvadoran forces landed in Port-au-Prince as part of a 70-person medevac team that consisted of three helicopters, one of which was used on Sunday to airlift the injured Kenyan back to Port-au-Prince.
Ahead of the tragedy, Caribbean leaders met with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to discuss the future of the mission amid its uncertain funding. Guterres told leaders that he plans to present a plan later this week to the Security Council, which had been asked by the outgoing Biden administration and Ecuador to transform the Kenyan mission into a formal U.N. peacekeeping operation to address its lack of funding, equipment and personnel.
Instead of proposing a peacekeeping mission, however, Guterres is proposing a model where the U.N. provides logistical and non-lethal support to the existing Kenyan-security mission and the salaries are paid for by voluntary contributions to a U.N.-controlled trust fund.
“This follows a very thorough assessment of the full range of options for the U.N. to support the medium-term security goals of Haiti, in line with what we can realistically do,” Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said.
Human Rights Watch, however, disagrees and said “it’s crucial that he secretary-general include the option of transforming the MSS into a U.N. operation as the Haitian authorities have requested.” The problem with sticking with the current structure, the group said, is that even if it reaches it full deployment of 2,500 it’s insufficient.
Currently the mission’s trust fund has $110.8 million with Canada being the largest contributor. The U.S. recently froze its $15 million cash contribution meant to encourage other donors after Washington financed the lion’s share of the mission, with more than $600 million in kind-donations, equipment and the construction of the base.
So far, no Latin American country has contributed to the fund. Neither has Russia nor China, the two loudest critics of foreign intervention in Haiti.
The lack of funding, one Caribbean official pointed out, has been a major obstacle to the deployment of regional forces.
The critical need for additional boots on the ground was underscored last week as both Haitian police and the MSS continued their efforts to stop the advancement of armed gangs in Kenscoff, a community in the mountains above the capital, and found themselves stretched thin as gangs set fires to homes in the neighborhoods of Nazon and Carrefour-Feuilles, sending residents running into the streets.
The death of the Kenyan cop, identified as 30-year-old Samuel Tompei Kaetuai, a father of two who was newly married, occurred on another battle front further north in the central Artibonite region.
Amid the surge in gang violence — and ongoing political infighting and power struggles within the government that’s severely undermining efforts to restore security— a police union on Monday demanded that the transitional government increase protections and equipment for police officers. Union leader Garry Jean Baptist, during a sit-in outside of the offices of the prime minister and presidential council, also said cops were not being paid on time. As he spoke, a handful of civilians held up signs that said, “We deserve security.”
Later, in a speech marking his first 100 days in office, Prime Minister Alix Dider Fils-Aimé promised a doubling of the budget for security, saying “We are at war against gangs.” Recent investments in equipment and support for the Haiti National Police, he said, show the government’s commitment to fighting gangs, which is a prerequisite for ending the transition by February 7, 2026 with a newly elected president and parliament.
“Security is the condition for a successful transition. There will be no referendum or elections without security,” Fils-Aimé said as reports trickled in that the neighborhood of Fort National, not far from the presidential palace, may be next in line to fall as gangs surround it and police try to push them back. “No force can stand up to the State when it chooses to make proper use of all its resources to deliver results.”
Already this year, eight Haitian police officers have been killed along with two members of Haiti’s small army. Most of the deaths occurred in confrontations with gangs, according to a report compiled by the National Human Rights Defense Network.
Pierre Esperance, the head of the group, said despite efforts by Caribbean governments last year to help Haiti put in place a transitional government the situation has only become worse.
“We’ve gone backwards,” Esperance said. “There is more political instability today and worsening of security. There are more territories that have been lost,” he said, as he ticked off neighborhoods in the metropolitan area as well as parts of the Artibonite region that have now fallen to gangs: Carrefour, Solino, Nazon, Gressier, Ganthier, Cabaret, communities in Kenscoff and the entire hospital district in Port-au-Prince. “It’s under this government that the gangs have burned more hospitals.”
Even the area around the U.S. embassy in Tabarre, where gangs went on a rampage Monday night in Tabarre 27, has not been spared the wrath of armed gangs.
“The U.S. embassy was always operational between 30% and 40%. Now I think it’s at 10%,” Esperance said.
CARICOM leaders say there have been improvements. They cite the creation of the Transitional Presidential Council, whose seven voting members and two observers represent the leading political parties and sectors in Haiti’s political life. They also cite the efforts of three former Caribbean prime ministers who have tried to mediate a brewing crisis on the council involving three members who have been accused of bribery.
The three have insisted on their innocence and dismissed calls to step down.
