Gunbattle as Kenyan police try to liberate Ganthier town from Haitian gangs

Kenyan police working under the UN-backed security mission in Haiti at the weekend exchanged fire with gangs as they sought to liberate parts of Ganthier Town near the border of the Dominican Republic.  

Working closely with officers attached to the Haiti National Police (HNP), the officers engaged members of the 400 Mawazo Gang in running battles on Saturday night.

The criminals attacked the police when the officers took control of Road Two, where the gangs had erected roadblocks and made it difficult for anyone to access Ganthier Town— the main route to the Dominican Republic.

According to a report released by the United Nations in early 2024, the Dominican Republic has been used by Haitian gangs to procure arms through the Port of Haina in Santo Domingo.

It is this arsenal-delivery route that the Kenyan officers under the UN-backed Multinational Security System Support (MSS) Mission were seeking to strangle.

Gun battle

General Commander of the United Nations-supported MSS Mission Godfrey Otunge on Sunday told the Nation that a gun battle that lasted hours.

“It did not come easily as the officers went head-on with the gang members who have for the longest time controlled the town,” he said, adding that they even took over Ganthier town Police Station which the gang members were using as their base.

Photos from the frontline and seen by the Nation show how the confrontation led to the destruction of the police station, with collapsed walls and part of it burnt down.

Gauthier town has been under the control of 400 Mawazo Gang, one of the largest criminal networks in Haiti, and mainly based in Ganthier and in Tabarre and Pétion-Ville.

It largely consists of deportees, former leaders of opposition groups, former smugglers and police officers, who act as its fighters.

During the Saturday attack, Mr Otunge said, lobbed petrol bombs at the Kenyan elite squad to scare them away.

“Some of the petrol bombs they used are in our possession,” he said.

During the fire exchange, one of the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), vehicles donated to the mission by the US, was hit on the screen using one of the petrol bombs.

An APC is a broad type of armoured military vehicle which is designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones.

This is the second assignment where Kenyan officers and officers in Haiti have been forced to use rifles against the gangs with the first assignment being on July 17, 2024, when they recaptured the Autorite Portuaire Nationale (APN) Port.

This week, the MSS team managed to clear roadblocks that were erected along Road Two.

The Nation has established that the roads had been blocked using huge containers. In one of the videos which is in our possession, the officers are seen using a tractor to push a container from the roads.

In other videos, a residence where police used to reside within Ganthier Town was completely burned down during the face-off between the officers and the gangs.

Mr Otunge said that “the gangs have been in control of the station and used it as one of their major bases.”

Meanwhile, Canadian Ambassador to Haiti Andre Francois Giroux held a meeting with Mr Otunge at the weekend.

During the meeting, Mr Giroux, who was appointed in November 2023, said that Canada was ready to support the mission.

It is worth noting that Canada is also planning to send its officers to the Caribbean country.

“Thank you Commander Otunge and your MSS mission team in Haiti for your dedication and great work, hand in hand with the Haitian National Police. Canada is with you now and tomorrow. Thank you for everything. Thank you very much,” he said in a statement after meeting with the Kenyan team in Haiti.

Canada and Jamaica are the two other countries that are supposed to be sending their teams to Haiti to join the Kenyan team.

For two weeks until mid-last week, Jamaica's top officials were in Haiti to assess the situation before they could send their military officers to join the Kenyans.

Other countries that will be sending their officers to Haiti are Benin, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Algeria, France, Germany, and Trinidad and Tobago. Turkey, the United Kingdom (UK) and Spain.

The Kenyan-led mission in Haiti was authorised by the United Nations Security Council in October 2023.

During the time, the Council called on the Mission to establish an oversight mechanism to prevent human rights violations or abuses and to ensure that the planning and conduct of operations during deployment will be in accordance with applicable international law.

So far a total of 396 police officers have been deployed to Haiti and Kenya is expected to send an additional 600 others.

Mr Otunge in an early interview told the Nation that the timeline in which the additional officers will be sent there remains unknown.

The officers who have been deployed to Haiti are drawn from the General Service Unit (GSU), Border Patrol Unit (BPU), Recce Squad and other Special Units.

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