By Frances Robles
The scorched vehicles, bullet-marked schools, leveled structures, and lifeless roads in Port-au-Prince’s heart are more than just traces of the grim events that transpired here; a more unsettling sign was left behind: skulls in the roadway.
A human cranium perched on a stick, with another lying nearby in front of a government building, seemingly served as a chilling warning from gang members directed at the Kenyan and Haitian law enforcement agents attempting to reestablish order in Haiti: Beware, we dominate these avenues.
A Kenyan patrol officer clad in a bulletproof vest and helmet, while surveying from an American armored vehicle, snapped a picture with his phone, as another officer maneuvered around the skulls in their path.
Accompanied by a photographer from the New York Times, I joined a patrol through Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, alongside a multinational security mission led by Kenyan forces. Over a six-hour span, the Kenyans were largely overlooked by passersby, occasionally met with jeers; their vehicle came under fire once.
The patrol laid bare the significant obstacles the Kenyan team faces as it seeks to regain control of Port-au-Prince from heavily armed factions that have dismantled life in the region, committing indiscriminate murder, raping women, incinerating neighborhoods, and leaving numerous people starving and living in makeshift shelters.
The path traversed by the officers unveiled numerous structures the police had demolished in their attempts to eradicate gang hideaways.
The officers proceeded to the Port-au-Prince seaport — the primary entry point for food, medicine, and other supplies into Haiti — remaining vigilant for possible snipers concealed on rooftops.
At the port, workers were busy preparing a ferry for a new water route intended to transport goods to provinces, sidestepping gang-dominated areas on land.
The officers, whose higher-ups were barred from speaking to the press, mentioned that their operations had been intensified recently to attempt to “squeeze” gangs from multiple angles.
The following day, a dockworker at the seaport sustained gunshot wounds.
That same day, the Kenyans found themselves in a firefight with gang members riding motorcycles and found the routes to the seaport obstructed.
“What shocked me the most upon my arrival here is the audacity of the gangs to attack in broad daylight,” remarked Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan commander of the multinational police unit, in an interview. “How could this even be possible?”
Since the arrival of the initial Kenyan officers in June, officials report noteworthy advancements as daily life in some neighborhoods gradually normalizes.
The Port-au-Prince airport has resumed operations after gangs were driven from its surroundings. Numerous street vendors have returned to their posts, and the gangs have also been dislodged from the capital’s major public hospital.
However, the Kenyan officers are significantly outnumbered, and the heavily armed gangs remain firmly entrenched in numerous areas of Port-au-Prince. Large sections still remain off-limits, including the downtown area and the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy. Although gangs no longer dominate the public hospital, it lies in disrepair and has yet to reopen.
Criminal organizations have also expanded their reach beyond the capital, taking control of three vital roads linking Port-au-Prince to other regions and laying siege to smaller towns and cities that the international force lacks the resources to access.
Recently, a gang in the Artibonite Valley, located in the country’s central region, launched an assault on a town, resulting in 88 fatalities, including 10 gang members.
Over 700,000 individuals who fled their homes amid a surge of violence in the past year and a half remain unable to return. Approximately half the nation’s populace — around 5.4 million people — struggles to secure daily meals, with at least 6,000 individuals living in dire camps facing starvation, as per a recent analysis by a group of global experts.
Haiti has endured appalling levels of gang violence for more than three years, following the assassination of the country’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse.
Numerous individuals who fled the violence found refuge in public schools and government facilities. Nearly 3,700 people have lost their lives this year, according to United Nations statistics.
The obstructed routes to and from Port-au-Prince make it “almost impossible” for the police to respond swiftly when gangs strike new targets outside the metropolitan zone, stated Haiti’s prime minister, Garry Conille, during a meeting in New York last month.
Nevertheless, the Kenyan-led contingent is impressively small.
Initially envisioned to comprise 2,500 officers, it now fields just over 400. Conversely, experts suggest that as many as 15,000 individuals belong to 200 Haitian gangs.
The $600 million operation, sanctioned by the United Nations but mainly financed and organized by the United States, relies on voluntary contributions and has thus far received $369 million from the United States and $85 million from other nations.
Recently, the Biden administration announced an additional aid package — $160 million — for the Haitian National Police.
Kenya’s foreign affairs minister, Musalia W. Mudavadi, stated at last month’s meeting in New York that there was only so much 400 officers could achieve, making it clear that the force’s resources were “currently deficient.”
The Biden administration is attempting to convert the deployment into an official U.N. peacekeeping mission, which would necessitate contributions of funds and personnel from member states.
Kenya’s president, William Ruto, plans to send an additional 300 officers this month and another 300 by the end of November. Jamaica and Belize have also contributed a small number of officers.
Reinforcements would empower the Kenyans to establish around a dozen forward operating bases throughout the metropolitan area and in the adjacent Artibonite Valley, allowing them to maintain areas reclaimed from gangs, Otunge stated.
When the Kenyans responded to a gang assault in Ganthier, located approximately 20 miles east of Port-au-Prince, the operation stretched over a week due to a lack of air support, compelling officers to sleep in their vehicles, Otunge recounted. There was no food available for the Kenyan officers, prompting the Haitian police to share their rations, he added.
Still, he stated with pride, “we pushed the gangs.”
Transitioning the Kenyan deployment into a peacekeeping mission could be pivotal in liberating Haiti from the control of gangs and facilitating the scheduling of elections for a new president, experts advised.
The Biden administration is convinced that this approach would be the most effective method to ensure the continuation of an international mission for as long as necessary, a senior official from the Biden administration mentioned during a briefing where reporters were instructed that the individual could not be identified while discussing diplomatic issues.
“We have a chance, a chance to build upon this foundation of security, to expand upon this progress, to foster a renewed sense of hope,” articulated Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the meeting in September with Haitian and Kenyan officials.
U.N. peacekeeping missions in Haiti have a long and complex history, fraught with incidents of sexual abuse and inadequate sanitation that introduced cholera to the nation, resulting in thousands of deaths.
Despite past difficulties, the head of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, tasked with organizing elections, has urged the United Nations to return.
“I firmly believe that this change in status, while acknowledging that past mistakes cannot recur, would assure the utter success of the mission,’’ declared Haiti’s acting president, Edgard Leblanc Fils, at the U.N. General Assembly last month.
Carlos Hercule, Haiti’s justice minister, expressed his feelings of being “impatient” as several Haitian police officers have left the nation, noting that Haiti urgently requires an enhanced deployment soon.
Otunge, a former head of security operations for the Kenyan Police who has participated in peacekeeping missions in South Sudan and Somalia, urged for patience.
He vowed not to relent until Haiti “regains its former glory.”
“I cannot let the Haitian people down,” Otunge declared. “I have never failed, and I am not prepared to fail in Haiti.”
