Kenya’s government said Thursday it will not send security forces to Haiti until all the training and funding conditions set last month when the U.N. Security Council approved giving it command of a multinational mission to fight violent gangs in the troubled Caribbean country are met.
Kenyan Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki told Parliament’s Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security that “unless all resources are mobilized and harnessed, our troops will not leave the country.”
He noted that UN member states are securing resources and have established how funds will be moved and made available to Kenya for the mission. However, it is unclear when the forces will have the training and funds to enable their deployment.
Meanwhile, Haiti reported a new wave of gang-related killings and kidnappings as it awaits aid.
On Wednesday, Haiti’s Supreme Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes reported that five of its employees were kidnapped in the capital, Port-au-Prince, forcing the agency to temporarily postpone all hearings.
“The court hopes that the officials, who are not being paid a salary that would allow them to meet the economic demands of the kidnappers, will be quickly released,” it said in a statement.
Also this week, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said about 2,500 people in the coastal town of Mariani, located west of the capital, were displaced by violence as gangs infiltrate previously peaceful communities.
Nearly 200,000 Haitians have lost their homes to gangs looting neighborhoods operated by rivals in their quest to control more territory. Many of the displaced now sleep in the open air or in overcrowded and extremely unsanitary makeshift settlements.