Guatemalan forces arrive to deal with gang violence

A contingent of 150 Guatemalan soldiers has arrived in Haiti tasked with helping to restore order amid the chaos caused by armed gangs.

The first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all recruited by the military police, according to the Guatemalan government.

A state of emergency has been declared across the Caribbean nation for months as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of much of Port-au-Prince.

The force is in Haiti to bolster a UN-backed security mission led by Kenya, which has so far failed to prevent escalating violence.

Kenya sent nearly 400 police officers in June and July last year to help fight the gangs.

It was the first tranche of the UN-sanctioned international force, which will consist of 2,500 officers from various countries.

A small number of forces from Jamaica, Belize and El Salvador are also in Haiti as part of the mission, and the US is the largest funder of the operation.

In March 2024 armed gangs stormed Haiti’s two largest prisonsreleasing about 3,700 prisoners.

The West Department – a region that includes the capital Port-au-Prince – was initially placed under a state of emergency on March 3, after escalating violence gripped the capital.

Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have made Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.

In 2021 President Jovenel Moise was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Port-au-Prince.

Since then, the country has been rocked by economic chaos, weak political control and increasingly brutal gang wars.