From deaths to delays, Haiti mission marred with legal battles

Distraught Jecinta Wanjiku Kabiru supported by relatives following the disappearance of her son Benedict Kabiru serving in Haiti. [George Njunge/Standard]

A fresh Kenyan police contingent of 230 officers departed Nairobi on Monday for Haiti and barely 24 hours later, the same aircraft returned home with a matching number of officers, some limping off the plane on crutches, worn down by the brutal realities of a mission thousands of kilometres away.

The arrival offered somewhat a deep reflection of a deployment that has been dogged from the start to end by legal battles, logistical shortages, and unpredictable funding. As the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) winds down its mandate, having officially elapsed in October, hard questions are emerging about whether the operation has been a success or a costly miscalculation.

In Haiti, where heavily armed gangs now control roughly 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, the security picture remains fragile and uneven. Kenyan and partner units have for months mounted patrols, escorted humanitarian convoys, and carried out targeted raids that have disrupted to an extent gang command structures in pockets of the city. These operations have occasionally forced gang retreats and kept vital corridors open, but they have not yet achieved the sustained, sweeping reversal of gang dominance that many Haitians desperately had hoped for.

Kenyan authorities have, however, on their part given the mission a resounding thumbs-up.

President William Ruto has publicly cast the mission as a triumph of Kenyan leadership  on the world stage, but critics argue the country has ventured too far into a volatile conflict with too little support and at a human cost that is growing harder to justify.

“When you left for the mission, the naysayers made a man called Barbecue look larger than life, but what they did not know is that you were properly trained. We are very proud of you,” stated Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen when he met the officers yesterday.

But nowhere is that cost more painfully felt than in the homes of the officers who never made it back alive.

When Tuesday night’s flight touched down at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, it carried not just weary officers but grief of families whose loved ones died in Haiti.

None has suffered more prolonged anguish than the family of Benedict Kabiru, who, despite months of petitions, are yet to receive his body. Their torment was deepened when they learned of his death not from authorities, but from President

Ruto’s address at the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, when the state publicly acknowledged for the first time that Kabiru had been killed. For weeks, his relatives had been kept in the dark as they searched for answers.

The pain is the same for the families of Corporal Kennedy Mutuku Nzuve and Samuel Tompoi Kaetuai, both killed while serving in Haiti.

Also, there is still no closure for the relatives of Chief Inspector Walter Nyankieya Nyamato, who died under unclear circumstances in a Washington, D.C., hotel in February 2024 while on an advance mission ahead of Kenya’s planned deployment.

It is estimated that the violence and humanitarian crises in Haiti have led to catastrophic levels of death and record-breaking displacement, with, as of late 2025, thousands reported killed and approximately 1.4 million people displaced across the country.

The UN has long warned that gangs are not the only groups committing human rights abuses and violations in Haiti, government security forces and local self-defence groups have also committed violations.

These unresolved Kenyan police deaths, coupled with opaque investigations and delayed communications, have fuelled resentment, with questions piling up on whether the mission is worth the price Kenya has paid.

“This is a failed mission by all standards. Gang violence has not gone down but increased, if anything. To date, this remains an illegal and unconstitutional deployment. There has never been a reciprocal agreement between Kenya and Haiti. We deployed just to please imperialists whose intention is to plunder Haiti’s resources,” observes Dr Ekuru Aukot, Thirdway Alliance leader and constitutional lawyer, who in the past challenged the decision in court.

He adds: “Only the presidents of the two countries can ratify the deployment, but since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse at his residence in Port-au-Prince in 2021, Haiti has not had a fully elected president. So how was this ratified in the first place?” wonders Dr Aukot.

According to Dr Aukot, Kenya’s own police regulations prohibited the deployment of police outside Kenya.

The National Police Service Standing Orders (Legal Notice 100 of 2017) state that the Service is to “be deployed in Kenya for the performance of its functions under the Constitution and the National Police Service Act.” The only exception allowed is during a national emergency, when the Service “may be deployed in the defence of the Republic.”

“Nowhere do the Standing Orders envision routine deployments abroad,” explains Dr Aukot.

In January 2024, the High Court upheld this interpretation, ruling that the Standing Orders restrict the police to operations within Kenya and that any overseas deployment required a formal reciprocal agreement, a legal safeguard that was absent in the Haitian case.

On 30 September 2025, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution replacing MSS with the new Gang Suppression Force (GSF), authorising the deployment of up to 5,500 personnel. Among the new resolutions adopted was to transform the security mission in Haiti into a larger, fully fledged force with military troops for a hybrid operation.

But why Kenya again deployed the police instead of the military has baffled some security experts, like George Musamali.

“The MSS mission having elapsed, the UN’s broader vision was to militarize the operation. Why Kenya has still insisted on sending police officers instead of the military is tough to comprehend. The earlier we pull out our police from Haiti, the better,” warns Musamali.

Kenya’s legal framework makes overseas deployment of police officers a complex and contested matter. Chapter 14 of the Constitution, which governs the country’s security services, empowers the President and the National Security Council to deploy national forces abroad, but it clearly distinguishes between the military (Kenya Defence Forces) and the police, with the latter’s mandate primarily confined to operations within Kenya.

UN briefings and reports over the past year have repeatedly flagged a cluster of operational and political problems, including understaffing, equipment shortfalls, and funding uncertainty. Multiple sources, including Kenyan officials, have complained of insufficient armoured vehicles, protective equipment, and reliable logistics, deficits that have hindered sustained offensive operations, even placing personnel at risk.

The United States, a major backer of the international effort in Haiti, offering logistical support, intelligence, training, and significant funding for non-trust-fund needs has been seen to recoil from its earlier commitment, showing signs of growing caution. Washington has supported the expansion of the UN-backed gang suppression concept but has repeatedly emphasised that burden-sharing must increase and that the mission needs better equipment and oversight.

“This was all an American mission from the onset. America has not been able to restore peace since the early 1900s, and so with the same American blueprint of deploying Kenyans, the mission was bound to fail,” observes Musamali.

“What Haiti needs, in my opinion, is a local solution that is purely homegrown. Our officers are merely occupying space; nothing much will come out of it. We are not even sure who we are dealing with, are these gangs, criminals, or just freedom fighters labelled as gangs? The only way is to facilitate a local solution, not occupy their land,” adds Musamali.

According to news agency Reuters, the U.S. has sent just $15 million to a dedicated UN trust fund set up to provide for the mission, second to Canada, which contributed some $63 million. The fund has received no donations since August this year, according to UN data.

“The only way is to pull out of this mission because it is an illegality. We went in because of the money that was dangled by the U.S. nothing more,” says Dr Aukot.