Haiti security mission extended for one year

The UN Security Council extended on Monday its authorization of the multinational policing mission in crime-ravaged Haiti, but without any call to transform it into a UN peacekeeping mission, as suggested by Port-au-Prince.

The resolution, adopted unanimously, expressed "deep concern about the situation in Haiti including violence, criminal activities and mass displacement."

The UN said on Friday that more than 3,600 people have been killed this year in "senseless" gang violence ravaging the country.

The Kenyan-led policing mission seeking to assist the Haitian national police in taking back control of areas under gang control was extended until October 2, 2025.

Though it is operating under the UN and Haitian government's blessing, it is not a UN-run force.

Several months after the Council's first green light in October 2023, Kenya began deploying its first contingents this summer. The force now numbers around 400 personnel -- with more than a dozen officers from each Jamaica and Belize.

Last week, Kenyan President William Ruto pledged that the deployment would be completed by January, bringing the total to 2,500.

But with the mission hobbled by a chronic lack of funding, Edgard Leblanc Fils, the head of transitional council governing Haiti, told the General Assembly last week he "would like to see a thought being given to transforming the security support mission into a peacekeeping mission under the mandate of the United Nations."

Such a move would allow it to raise necessary funds, he said, echoing a recent proposal from Washington.

The first version of the extension resolution, drafted by the United States and Ecuador, called for planning to begin for a transition from the security deployment to a full-blown UN peacekeeping operation.

But after fraught negotiations which were marked by opposition from China and Russia, according to diplomatic sources, the adopted text makes no reference to such a shift.

Instead the resolution as adopted "encourages the MSS mission to accelerate its deployment, and further encourages additional voluntary contributions and support for the mission."

Guinea, ruled by a junta since a putsch in 2021, offered on Saturday to contribute 650 police officers to the mission.