What was Kenya's role in Haiti?

The crisis Kenya stepped into was severe. About 200 gangs had come to control roughly 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and those gangs had amassed control over territory and illicit markets amid political instability following the 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse.

How Kenya ended up leading the mission

In July 2023, Kenya announced it would consider leading a multinational force in Haiti and sending up to 1,000 police, if authorized by the UN Security Council. In October 2023, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2699 authorizing a non-UN-conducted multinational force, financed by voluntary contributions, to provide security for critical infrastructure and operational support to the Haitian National Police for 12 months. The MSS, short for Multinational Security Support mission, is essentially a coalition of countries sending their own police and security personnel rather than a formal UN peacekeeping force with its own command structure.

Kenya's force arrived in Haiti in June 2024, taking on an entrenched crisis of gang dominance and institutional fragility. The mission's aims included supporting the Haitian National Police by protecting critical infrastructure, managing borders and ports, conducting anti-gang operations, and implementing community-oriented policing.

What happened on the ground

The results were mixed. More than six months after deploying, rampant gangs had gained more territory and power while access to vital humanitarian aid for desperate civilians dwindled. Critics pointed to chronic underfunding and the sheer scale of the task. At the same time, improved coordination between the MSS and Haitian national security forces "has led to better planning and execution of anti-gang operations," according to the UN's own assessment.

How it ended

Kenya officially concluded its deployment to Haiti under the MSS mission, with Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen praising the operation as a success that helped restore stability in the Caribbean nation. Murkomen noted that the deployment was inspired by a call for global cooperation made at the United Nations General Assembly in 2023. The withdrawal marked the close of a roughly two-year commitment that drew both praise for Kenya's willingness to step up and criticism over the mission's limited resources and uneven results.