The plan to deploy Kenyan police officers to war-torn Haiti is in its final stages, foreign Affairs Principal Secretay Korir Sing’oei has intimated.
Addressing the press on Sunday, Sing’oei noted that the UN-backed keeping mission is still on course and Kenya being the head of the multinational security force will see its officers off in the coming weeks.
He said that Kenya has been preparing for a while now and is about to honor a reciprocal agreement signed between the two nations which provides guidelines on how the deployment will be effected.
“The government is in the process of finalizing preparation to deploy. I can tell you for sure that that deployment will happen in the next few weeks,” he said.
He dismissed claims that President William Ruto will visit Haiti during his 4-day state visit to the United States from May 20.
According to a Haitian source, the first contigen to 200 Kenyan Police, out of the pledged 1,000 is expected by May 23 when president Ruto will meet President Biden.
The Kenyan government has not publicly commented on the date, but an interior ministry source told AFP they could arrive by next Tuesday.
Kenya had announced in March that it was putting its deployment on hold until a transitional council was installed in Haiti, after Haiti’s then-prime minister Ariel Henry quit as the crisis grew even more violent.
The council was sworn in late last month and is due to lead the country until fresh polls, with an elected government to take over by February 6 next year.
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