Issue No. 78

Kenya’s Haiti Mission Stalls Amid Deepening Crisis

On Monday, Kenya's National Security Advisor Monica Juma addressed the UN Security Council (UNSC) regarding the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti. Highlighting several issues, Juma revealed that over 200 trained Kenyan police officers remained in-country, unable to deploy to Haiti due to a shortage of equipment and logistical support. The latest UNSC session on Haiti made for grim viewing, as since the commencement of the MSS mission last year, one arguably doomed before it even began, the restive Caribbean nation has spiralled further into lawlessness. Others present further emphasised the scale of the challenges facing Haiti, with the UN Special Representative, María Isabel Salvador, warning that the country is approaching a "point of no return," while the Haitian ambassador to the UN said it was "slowly dying."

Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, Haiti has been upended and paralysed by paramilitary gangs with a penchant for extreme violence. Today, governance in large swathes of the troubled country has all but collapsed, with the vast majority of the capital, Port-au-Prince, dominated by heavily armed gangs. The situation has been particularly dire since February 2024, when Haitian PM Ariel Henry travelled to Nairobi in a bid to break the deadlock that had repeatedly delayed the Kenyan deployment. Henry would not return to Port-au-Prince– after he left the country, 4,000 inmates were broken out of prison, and the capital's security collapsed. Eventually, though, the deployment of Kenyan police officers as part of the MSS mission, now leading around 1,000 personnel from 6 countries, was intended to begin turning the tide and wresting power back into the hands of the Haitian transitional council. Those hopes quickly faded, with 2024 marking a fresh nadir for modern-day Haiti, with at least 5,600 people killed, according to UN figures, and dozens slain in several notorious massacres. 

Amid significant delays and funding issues, the total officers under the command of Godfrey Otunge remains far below the 2,500 initially intended to pacify the country. The transitional council, too, remains beset by corruption and self-interest, with the prospect of elections in 2025 highly improbable and, in fact, only likely to further fuel the gang violence. Displacement numbers continue to climb as well, with nearly 703,000 people recorded as displaced in 2024 as the humanitarian situation deteriorated further. The UN is now appealing for USD 900 million to respond to the immense crisis, but few expect that such a sum will be raised.

The MSS mission, meanwhile, has struggled to make significant inroads in Haiti. On several occasions in neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince, forces have pushed in and regained some territory last year, but these have proven to be short-term wins, and the gangs remain able to conduct their operations at whim. A massacre of over 200 people in early December on the orders of a gang leader who accused Vodou practitioners of responsibility for his son's illness emphasised the uphill battle the MSS mission and the Haitian forces are facing. These forces have struggled to retake territory and stabilise it primarily due to the personnel and equipment limitations. Kenyan officers have had to operate in a complex insurgent environment where French and Haitian Creole are predominantly spoken-- not English or Swahili. Washington has provided the MSS mission with a military base from which to operate, as well as equipment, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. But many of these have been rendered ineffective, with the cumbersome vehicles struggling to navigate the capital's narrow streets and their non-bulletproof tyres being shot out. Their paramilitary adversaries, meanwhile, possess significant quantities of heavy weapons. In late March, the first Kenyan police officer, Benedict Kabiru, was killed in an ambush by suspected gang members. 

These issues are not likely to ease anytime soon, with personnel numbers only creeping above 1,000 towards the end of 2024 and the MSS mission's future funding deeply uncertain. Initially, part of the rationale behind the Kenyan deployment was to engender Nairobi to the Biden administration, which had come to increasingly regard the country as a bulwark against the broader instability in the Horn of Africa. While the former US administration did not place much significance on its relationship with the continent, Kenyan President William Ruto was nevertheless afforded a State Visit in May 2024, where Kenya was elevated to the status of Major Non-NATO Ally, the first in sub-Saharan Africa. Bilateral trade deals and investments in Kenya's 'Silicon Savannah' were pledged, and, critically, the US promised to underwrite the majority of the costs of the Haiti mission. 

Last year, with support from the Haitian transitional government, Kenya, and several Latin American countries, the Biden administration lobbied for the UNSC-approved MSS mission to be transformed into a formal UN peacekeeping operation, where it could access steadier funding, but Russia and China have vetoed such attempts. Today, the mission is reported to have only around USD 110 million in its UN Trust Fund coffers, far below the estimates of USD 600 million annual running costs, according to Nairobi. Most of this funding has come from the US and Canada, which previously led a security mission in Haiti, as well as Algeria, Spain, and Italy. 

The question of funding is likely to become only more acute in the coming months, with a recently leaked State Department memo suggesting the US is preparing to entirely slash its budget for international peacekeeping missions. Earlier this year, the 90-day pause the Trump administration placed on all foreign aid also impacted the MSS mission. Further, Washington has provided mixed signals regarding its foreign policy towards Haiti, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed his government's commitment to the MSS mission in a recent phone call with President Ruto. 

Nevertheless, with the Trump administration hell-bent on cutting nearly all foreign expenditures, it may well be that the MSS mission loses its primary donor. And with ballooning security and humanitarian demands on European donors and others, the likelihood of significant cash injections to support the requisite levels of personnel and equipment is extremely slim. It is also a matter of will regarding personnel. Benin had offered up to 2,000 soldiers but paused their deployment last year, arguing that the situation required a military---not policing-- solution. Similarly, other countries that promised to dispatch personnel are yet to follow through. Without greater logistical support and boots on the ground, whether police, soldiers or blue helmets, it is improbable that the current iteration of the mission will be able to carry out its mandate, which includes the protection of civilians.

Kenya's deployment to Haiti is far from the only multilateral deployment facing turmoil. Closer to home and one in which the Kenyan army is deployed, the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) similarly faces massive funding questions and personnel limitations. There are other similarities between Haiti and Somalia, two 'failed states' with a chequered history of foreign interventions and a lack of domestic political will amongst a divided national elite that has undermined ongoing security deployments. But looking ahead, with the Trump administration determined to pull back America from its role as the 'global policeman' and growing demands on other traditional donors, the future of large-scale multilateral peacekeeping operations is in doubt. It may be that the MSS mission struggles on in its diminished iteration due to US interests in Haiti and sustaining relations with Kenya, but it could be one of the last of its kind in the tail end of the liberal international order.

The Horn Edition Team