PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) – A contingent of security forces from Guatemala and El Salvador arrived in Haiti's capital on Friday to reinforce a United Nations-backed mission aimed at restoring security amid a bloody conflict with armed gangs.
A mission communications official said the new arrivals were 75 Guatemalans and eight Salvadorans.
Haiti's interim government said in a social media post that Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council President Leslie Voltaire, Prime Minister Alex Didier Fils-Aime and US Ambassador Dennis Hankins welcomed the troops at Port-au-Prince airport.
“They have come to reinforce the multinational force in the war against gangsters and guns in the country,” the government said.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo pledged in September to send 150 military police, three months after he initially pledged in a letter to the United Nations to send an unnumbered contingent along with personal equipment.
El Salvador promised in August to send 78 soldiers for medical evacuations as well as three helicopters – desperately needed by Haitian security forces struggling with mountainous terrain and highways dotted with checkpoints controlled by gangs.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has gained wide popularity for a harsh crackdown on organized crime in his country including the use of mass trials and the construction of a “mega prison”, has stated that he will be able to “reform” Haiti and that its gangs must be “eliminated”.
The mission is led by Kenya, which deployed nearly 400 police officers in the middle of last year, far short of the 1,000 it promised. The police were later joined by 24 Jamaican personnel and two senior officers from Belize.
However, the mission failed to prevent gangs from seizing new territories and committing numerous massacres as violence escalated dramatically in the final months of 2024, causing thousands of people to flee their homes.
Meanwhile, Haiti's National Police has laid off thousands of its officers in recent years.
About 10 countries have pledged to send more than 3,100 troops to Haiti, but only a few have been deployed so far.
