Kenya Pauses Haiti Deployment amid Growing Doubts about Mission

GOOBJOOG NEWS | NAIROBI: Kenya has announced that is pausing its planned deployment of police officers to Haiti, following the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

The announcement comes just 11 days after the Henry met with Kenyan president William Ruto in Nairobi and signed an agreement that was meant to fast-track the long-delayed deployment of Kenyan police officers to tackle violence in the Caribbean country.  

The Kenyan government however said it was willing to re-evaluate once a government was in place in Haiti.

Abraham Korir Sing’Oei, the principal secretary at the foreign affairs ministry, said a future decision on whether to deploy would depend on the situation on the ground.

“There has to be an authority that can be the basis for a police deployment – that enjoys constitutional authority in Haiti,” he said.

The United States, which has pledged the lion’s share of the mission’s funding, said it was confident the deployment would go ahead once Haiti’s new leaders were named through a transitional process.

“We think those are steps that will happen, as I said, in the very near future, and that would pave the way for this mission to go forward without delay,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.