They flew 7,000 miles to fight the gangs of Haiti. The gangs are at the top. – Dnyuz

If the burned out cars, bullet-riddled schools, demolished buildings and deserted streets in downtown Port-au-Prince weren’t proof enough of the terrible things happening here, someone left an even more ominous hint: skulls in the middle of the city. the street.

A human head propped up on a stick with another on the ground next to it in front of a government office was apparently intended as a threatening message from gang members to the Kenyan and Haitian police officers trying to restore order in Haiti: Beware, we rule these streets .

A Kenyan police officer, wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet, patrolling in a U.S. armored personnel carrier, took a photo with his cell phone while another maneuvered the vehicle around the skulls.

Together with a photographer from the New York Times, I went on patrol through Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, as a Kenyan-led multinational security mission was deployed in the country. During the six-hour tour, the Kenyans were largely ignored by people on the streets and occasionally harassed; the vehicle was immediately shot.

The patrol provided a glimpse into the enormous challenges facing the Kenyan armed forces in their efforts to wrest control of Port-au-Prince from armed groups that have unraveled life in the country, killing indiscriminately, raping women, burning neighborhoods and leaving hundreds of thousands starved and hungry. in makeshift shelters.

The route the officers took revealed many buildings that police had demolished in an effort to eliminate gang hideouts.

The officers also traveled to the seaport of Port-au-Prince – the main conduit for food, medicine and other goods to Haiti – where they were always on alert for potential snipers hiding on rooftops.

At the port, workers were loading a ferry for a new maritime route to ferry supplies to provinces by water, avoiding gang strongholds on land.

The officers, whose supervisors were not allowed to give interviews, said they had recently intensified their operations in an effort to “squeeze out” gangs from various fronts.

A day later, a dock worker was shot and wounded at the seaport.

That same day, the Kenyans were involved in a gun battle with gang members on motorcycles, blocking the paths to the seaport.

“What surprised me when I came here is how the gangs dared to attack in broad daylight,” Godfrey Otunge, the Kenyan multinational police commander, said in an interview. “How on earth could this happen?”

Since the first Kenyan officers arrived in June, officials have cited significant progress as life slowly returns to normal in some neighborhoods.

Port-au-Prince airport has reopened after gangs were cleared from the area. Many street vendors have returned to work, and gangs have also been driven out of the capital’s main public hospital.

But Kenyan officers are vastly outnumbered, and heavily armed gangs remain entrenched in many parts of Port-au-Prince. Large parts remain no-go zones, including the center and the area around the US embassy. Gangs are no longer in control of the public hospital, but it is in ruins and has not reopened.

Criminal groups have also expanded their control beyond the capital, seizing three major roads connecting Port-au-Prince to other parts of the country and besieging smaller towns and villages that international forces do not have the resources to attack. reaches.

Last week, a gang attacked a town in the Artibonite Valley in the central part of the country, killing 88 people, including 10 gang members.

More than 700,000 people who fled their homes during a wave of violence over the past year and a half are still unable to return. Half of the country’s population – roughly 5.4 million people – struggles to eat every day, and at least 6,000 people living in squalid camps face famine, according to an analysis recently released by a global group. experts.

“They came to help us – and we really hope they will help us – but we don’t see any difference yet,” said Junior Lorveus, a 40-year-old mobile phone repairman, as Kenyan officers patrolled on foot the square in the center of the Champs de Mars. .

The gang violence forced Mr. Lorveus to leave his home and workplace, and he longs to return.

Mr Otunge, who exudes relentless optimism, believes he can.

People should be allowed to return to the areas his officers have “pacified,” he said, “so we can at least give them security now.”

“Safety is perception,” he added.

Haiti has been plagued by an astonishing level of gang violence for more than three years, since the country’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated.

Many people who fled the violence settled in public schools and government buildings. Nearly 3,700 people have been killed this year, according to the United Nations.

Blocked roads to and from Port-au-Prince make it “almost impossible” for police to intervene in time when gangs attack new locations outside the metropolitan area, Haiti’s Prime Minister Garry Conille said at a meeting last year in New York. month.

But the Kenyan-led force is woefully small.

Originally planned for 2,500 officers, there are just over 400. On the other hand, experts estimate that up to 15,000 people are members of 200 Haitian gangs.

The $600 million mission was authorized by the United Nations, but largely financed and organized by the United States. It relies on voluntary contributions and has so far received $369 million from the United States and $85 million from other countries.

The Biden administration recently announced a separate aid allocation – $160 million – for the Haitian National Police.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia W. Mudavadi said at the meeting in New York last month that just 400 officers could achieve much, making clear that the force’s capabilities were “currently lacking.”

The Biden administration is trying to turn the deployment into an official UN peacekeeping mission, with member states required to contribute money and personnel.

The Kenyan officers conduct joint operations with Haitian police to clear gang roadblocks — usually shipping containers stolen from the port — but sometimes the only bulldozer they have breaks down, Mr. Otunge said.

He acknowledged that the mission needs air support and more personnel, adding that the operation is “expensive.”

Kenyan President William Ruto plans to send another 300 officers this month and another 300 by the end of November. Jamaica and Belize have also sent a small number of officers.

Reinforcements would allow the Kenyans to set up a dozen forward bases in the metropolitan area and in the nearby Artibonite Valley to hold an area that has been retaken from gangs, Mr Otunge said.

When the Kenyans responded to a gang attack in late July in Ganthier, about 20 miles east of Port-au-Prince, the operation lasted a week due to the lack of air support, and officers had to sleep in their vehicles, Mr. Otunge said. There was no food for the Kenyan officers, so Haitian police shared theirs, he added.

Still, he added proudly, “we put pressure on the gangs.”

Speaking about the early days of the deployment in Haiti, when it tried to clear gangs from the airport, Mr. Otunge said: “Our officers were being shot at every day.”

But they continued, he added. “We said, ‘We can’t stop. We have to keep up what we’re doing.’

“We kept it going.”

Shifting Kenya’s commitment to a peacekeeping mission could be the only way to free Haiti from the grip of gangs and allow scheduling of elections to elect a new president, experts say.

The Biden administration believes this would be the most effective way to ensure an international mission continues for as long as necessary, a senior Biden administration official said in a briefing in which reporters were told the official could not are identified while discussing diplomatic matters.

“We have an opportunity, an opportunity to build on this foundation of security, to build on this progress, to build on a renewed sense of hope,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at the meeting in September with Haitian and Kenyan officials.

UN peacekeeping operations have a long and complicated history in Haiti, rife with sexual abuse and poor sanitation that brought cholera to the country and caused thousands of deaths.

But despite past problems, the head of Haiti’s presidential transitional council, which is charged with organizing elections, has urged the United Nations to return.

“I am confident that this change of status, while recognizing that the mistakes of the past cannot be repeated, would guarantee the full success of the mission,” Haiti’s acting President Edgard Leblanc Fils told the General Assembly last month of the UN.

Carlos Hercule, Haiti’s justice minister, said he felt “impatient” as many Haitian police officers have left the country. He added that Haiti needed a stepped-up deployment soon.

Mr Otunge, a former director of security operations for the Kenyan police who has taken part in peacekeeping missions in South Sudan and Somalia, urged patience.

He will not stop, he said, until Haiti “regains its glory.”

“I cannot abandon the Haitian people,” Mr. Otunge said. “I have never failed, and I am not willing to fail in Haiti.”

The message They flew 7,000 miles to fight the gangs of Haiti. The gangs are at the top. first appeared in the New York Times.