KINGSTON (Reuters) – Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced on Tuesday that his government will send an initial deployment of 24 military and police personnel to Haiti to support an international security mission aimed at helping it fight powerful gangs.
Holness said the initial group will deploy to Haiti on Thursday, and help lay out the command structure to prepare for further deployments.
In March, Jamaica formally pledged 200 personnel for the U.N.-backed mission, but the long-delayed security force has been slow to deploy and its initial mandate will expire in under a month if it is not renewed.
The mission is being led by Kenya, which is so far the only country to have deployed to Haiti with 400 police officers, out of a total pledge of 1,000. Alongside Kenya’s support for the mission, Benin, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Belize have also promised to send at least 2,900 troops.
Several other countries have made unspecified pledges of personnel for the security push in Haiti, a crisis-racked Caribbean island nation of more than 11 million.
Antonette Wemyss-Gorman, a senior Jamaican defense official, told reporters that the country’s deployment will serve under senior military officer Kevron Henry, who will act as deputy commander to Kenya’s Godfrey Otunge.
“This is a start to what we intend to do,” said Holness. “We want a very successful operation. The operation should have no shortcomings because there was a failure to plan.”
The deployment has faced setbacks such as delays in paying out wages and supplying key equipment.
Haiti first requested the force in 2022. Armed gangs have since taken over much of the capital and expanded to surrounding areas, fueling a humanitarian crisis with mass displacements, sexual violence, child recruitment and widespread hunger.
Over the weekend, Belize said it was sending two senior officers to Jamaica for the Haitian mission.
(Reporting by Zahra Burton; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by David Alire Garcia)
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