Court in Kenya stops police deployment for UN mission in Haiti Court in Kenya stops police deployment for UN mission in Haiti

A Kenyan court has halted government plans to send police officers to Haiti on a UN mission. The High Court in Nairobi justified its decision on Friday by saying that the National Security Council does not have the authority to deploy Kenyan police outside the country.

In October, at the request of the Haitian government, the UN Security Council approved an international police operation in the Caribbean country to combat gang violence there. Kenya agreed to take the lead and provide about 1,000 of the 3,000 planned aid workers. Without the East African country’s participation, the completion of the mission would be in doubt. After the ruling, Kenyan government spokesman Isaac Mwaura announced that he would appeal.

Opposition politician Ekuru Aukot, who initiated the trial, welcomed the court’s decision. It is not good that the government is considering sending its police to Haiti, even though there are serious security problems at home, Aukot said. There have been repeated attacks and kidnappings by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab, especially in the border area with Somalia.

According to UN estimates, gangs control about 80 percent of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and are increasingly spreading to other parts of the country. The documented number of people killed, injured and kidnapped rose 122 percent last year to more than 8,400 compared to the previous year, as U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti María Isabel Salvador reported to the U.N. Security Council in New York. The violence also worsens the precarious supply situation: according to the UN, almost half of Haiti’s 11 million inhabitants are suffering from acute hunger. (sda/dpa)