Gangs besieged a Haiti hospital. Where is Kenya’s police force?

Armed gang members surrounded a Port-au-Prince hospital, trapping dozens inside. Rising violence in Haiti has pushed Kenyan lawmakers to OK a police intervention in the Caribbean nation – though the move still faces opposition.

First Look

A heavily armed gang surrounded a hospital in Haiti on Wednesday, trapping women, children, and newborns inside until police rescued them, according to the director of the medical center, who pleaded for help via social media.

Hours later, the Kenyan parliament approved the deployment of 1,000 police officers to Haiti in a multinational mission backed by the United Nations, to help deal with the rising gang violence.

The Fontaine Hospital Center in the capital of Port-au-Prince is considered an oasis and a lifeline in a community overrun by gangs that have unleashed increasingly violent attacks against each other and residents. People who live in the capital’s sprawling Cite Soleil slum are routinely raped, beaten, and killed.

The hospital founder and director, Jose Ulysse, told The Associated Press that gangs were torching homes around the hospital and preventing people inside from leaving. He initially said that it appeared some gang members had entered the hospital but later said they did not go inside.

Mr. Ulysse said members of Haiti’s National Police force responded to his call for help and arrived with three armored trucks to evacuate 40 children and 70 patients to a private home in a safer part of the city. Among those delicately evacuated were children on oxygen, he said.

“Gangs are in total control of the area,” he said.

The distribution of fuel from the nearby Varreux port terminal has also been temporarily suspended, according to Reuters. Earlier this week, no trucks were able to transport gasoline, diesel, or kerosene, the facility posted on X, formerly Twitter. Last year, the terminal, Haiti’s largest, was closed over nearly seven weeks due to a gang blockade.

A spokesman for the National Police did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Mr. Ulysse identified those responsible as members of the Brooklyn gang, led by Gabriel Jean-Pierre, best known as “Ti Gabriel.” Mr. Jean-Pierre also is the leader of a powerful gang alliance known as G-Pep, one of two rival coalitions in Haiti.

The Brooklyn gang has some 200 members and controls certain communities within Cite Soleil, including Brooklyn. They are involved in extortion, hijacking of goods, and general violence, according to a recent U.N. report.

“The G-Pep coalition and its allies strongly reinforced cooperation and diversified their revenues, in particular by committing kidnapping for ransom, which has enabled them to strengthen their fighting capacity,” the report stated.

The latest bout of violence to strike the area followed the death last Sunday of rival gang leader Iscar Andris, a founder of the rival G9 gang alliance, according to Reuters. Over the past few years, G9 has battled GPep.

When the AP visited the Fontaine Hospital Center earlier this year, Mr. Ulysse said in an interview that gangs had targeted him personally twice.

Earlier this year, at least 20 armed gang members burst into a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders and snatched a patient from an operating room. The criminals gained access after faking a life-threatening emergency, the organization said.

Gangs across Haiti have continued to grow more powerful since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the number of kidnappings and killings keeps rising.

Police intervention

Burundi, Chad, Senegal, Jamaica, and Belize have all pledged troops for the Kenya-led multinational mission to combat violent gangs in the troubled Caribbean country.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry first requested the immediate deployment of foreign armed forces more than a year ago, but it wasn’t until early October that the U.N. Security Council voted to send a non-U.N. multinational force to Haiti that would be funded by voluntary contributions.

It’s not clear when exactly Kenya’s police would be deployed. Kenya’s government has said that its police officers will not be deployed to Haiti until all conditions on training and funding are met.

Despite parliament’s approval, the planned deployment is still blocked by the High Court in Nairobi, thanks to a case brought by a former Kenyan presidential candidate who said the mission “was a mistake and a suicide mission.”

The court hearing the case on the deployment’s legality will deliver its verdict on January 26, Charles Midenga, a lawyer for the petitioner, told Reuters.

The key issues in the debate are who would fund the deployment and what justifications there are for sending security forces to Haiti, thousands of miles from Kenya.

Kenya’s interior minister told parliament last week that Kenya will only deploy the officers to Haiti if funding and equipment was paid for by U.N. member states. Parliamentary officials have said all costs of the deployment would be funded by the United Nations.

But even if the Kenyan forces arrive, it won’t change much, said Pierre Espérance, executive director of the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network.

“The biggest problem right now in Haiti is the absence of the government and rule of law, and also all key state institutions have collapsed, even the police,” he said. “How will the force be able to operate in Haiti if we don’t have a functional government?”

Mr. Espérance also noted Haiti’s government has long been linked to gangs, compounding the problem.

A spokesperson for the prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP Writer Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed. Material from Reuters was used in this report.