The arrival of the first fighting contingents of soldiers and policemen from Latin America in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Friday, brought some relief to 400 under-resourced Kenyan police officers who have been battling well-armed terrorising gangs despite calls on United Nations and the Unites States of America to hasten the deployment an international peacekeeping force in the crime-ravaged Caribbean island nation.

The 83 security personnel that was made up of eight soldiers from El Salvador and the first 75 of 150 military police officers from Guatemala. While the Salvadorans will be providing casualty and medical evacuations in support of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, the Guatemalans will be joining operations to take down Haiti’s gangs, reports the Miami Herald.

According to Reuters, the latest contingent of security forces from Guatemala and El Salvador that touched down in Haitian capital on Friday to reinforce long-delayed United Nations-backed mission tasked with restoring security amid a bloody conflict with armed gangs. The new arrivals were made up of 75 Guatemalans and eight Salvadorans, a communications officer for the mission said.

The contingent was met at Toussaint Louverture International Airport by Haitian authorities including the head of the Presidential Transitional Council, Leslie Voltaire, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and police chief Rameau Normil. Also present was US Ambassador Dennis Hankins as well as the commander of the force, Godfrey Otunge of Kenya and deputy commander Colonel Kevron Henry of the Jamaica Defence Force.

Otunge told the Guatemalans and Salvadorans that they were joining “a family that is welcoming.”

The president of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, Leslie Voltaire, alongside Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and US Ambassador Dennis Hankins, welcomed the troops at Port-au-Prince’s airport, Haiti’s interim government said in a post on social media.

“They have come to reinforce the Multinational Force in the fight against gangsters and guns in the country,” the government said.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo had in September pledged to send 150 military police, three months after initially pledging in a letter to the UN an unnumbered contingent alongside personal equipment.

El Salvador had in August promised 78 soldiers for medical evacuation operations as well as three helicopters – much needed by Haitian security forces contending with mountainous terrain and highways scattered with gang-controlled checkpoints.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has garnered broad popularity over a harsh crackdown on organised crime in his home country including the use of mass trials and construction of a “mega-jail”, has stated that he would be able to “fix” Haiti and that its gangs must be “obliterated.”

The mission is being led by Kenya, which deployed nearly 400 police in the middle of last year, far short of the 1,000 it had promised. The police were later joined by 24 Jamaican personnel and two senior officers from Belize.

The FBI said he made at least two trips to the city in the months before the attack. However, the mission has failed to prevent gangs from taking new territories and committing several massacres as violence dramatically escalated in the last months of 2024, causing thousands more people to flee their homes.

Haiti’s national police have meanwhile shed thousands of officers in recent years. Some 10 countries have together pledged over 3,100 troops for Haiti, but few have so far deployed.

In preparation for the additional boots on the ground, the Biden administration has flown at least 22 flights into Haiti in the past month with much needed equipment for the Haitian police and the Kenyan mission including armored vehicles.

Haiti has been grappling with escalating gang violence, particularly since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Gangs are estimated to control roughly 85 per cent of the capital, launching coordinated attacks on prisons, police stations, and even the main international airport.

On Christmas Eve, gunmen opened fire on a crowd celebrating the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital, which had been shuttered earlier this year following gang violence. Two journalists covering the event and a police officer were killed in what authorities described as one of the most brazen attacks yet.

The international security mission has so far been led by around 400 officers from Kenya. Additional personnel from the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, and Chad have been pledged, but it remains unclear when they will arrive.

• A Tell report