PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP)— Kenyan police arrived in violence-ravaged Haiti on Tuesday on a mission to defeat the Caribbean nation’s powerful gangs, just as deadly unrest gripped Nairobi during mass protests.
A Kenya Airways airplane landed in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince’s airport after months of waiting for a security force in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.
An AFP reporter saw the first of the initial batch of 400 officers arrive on the tarmac, with hundreds more police expected both from Kenya and other nations.
Kenyan President William Ruto had ceremonially seen the police off a day earlier in Nairobi, in what he described as a “historic” mission of solidarity.
But Kenya on Tuesday was also engulfed in violence, with protesters breaching parliament and a fire erupting at the governor’s office.
Footage showed police trying to douse the flames at City Hall with a water cannon, and rights groups accused officers of firing live rounds, leaving one dead and many wounded.