President William Ruto has call for more funding towards the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti.
He made this known on Tuesday after the UN voted to approve the Kenya police led mission.
Ruto asertained that the mission will provide a different footprint in the history of international interventions in Haiti.
He added that the situation in Haiti demands, as a matter of humanitarian consideration, moral responsibility and fundamental justice, that actions should be scaled up significantly to meet the demands of emergency relief, humanitarian aid, support for livelihoods, and major interventions in public health and environmental protection.
“I also call the attention of states, international organisations, philanthropies, and other institutions to attend to the severe environmental degradation in Haiti, which calls out for the urgent mobilisation of collective action”.
He said the mission is a foundational intervention, to provide the necessary conditions for Haiti to consolidate its development and governance.
“It is therefore absolutely essential that resources as well as operational scope available to the UN team, as well as other humanitarian and development actors on the ground in Haiti, be appropriately reinforced.”
He said the people of Haiti today stand in need.
“It is our fundamental moral obligation to be their friend indeed, by standing with them.” “We shall succeed in Haiti. We must not fail the people of Haiti,” he added.
This came as Kenyan officials rushed to fast-track the planned deployment of the police with hopes of getting more funding.
A special desk has been set up at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to coordinate the exercise of resource mobilisation.
Already the US has pledged to provide $200 million (Sh29 billion) for the mission.
The Biden administration has pledged $100 million (Sh14.5 billion) to the mission and another $100 million (Sh14.5 billion from the Defense Department in the form of intelligence, airlifts, communications and medical assistance.
About a dozen countries said they would join the mission, including Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda.
Kenyan officials said they expect more countries to join in providing money and other needed resources.
The police, will among others carry out “targeted operations” along with the Haitian National Police.
Kenya has pledged at least 1,000 police officers, and several other nations are expected to offer other resources.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in Haiti from October last year until June, as gangs took over large patches of the country, particularly Port-au-Prince, the capital, according to the United Nations.
Many neighborhoods have cleared out as people have fled widespread murders, kidnappings and extortion.
Armed gangs have seized control of large tracks of Haiti’s land following intersecting public health, political and economic crises. The Western Hemisphere’s poorest country has been plunged into chaos since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 at his private residence in Port-au-Prince.
United Nations figures show that more than 2,400 people have died in violence there since the start of the year.
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