A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday.
The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer.
Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media.
Photo: AP
Gang violence has left more than 1 million people homeless in the Caribbean country in the past few years, according to the UN, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
The Kenya-led force was launched last year and tasked with fighting gangs trying to seize full control of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Separately, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday was to travel to the Caribbean, looking for ways forward on violence-torn Haiti and to show support for Guyana in its dispute with Venezuela.
The US’ top diplomat was to travel to Jamaica for a summit of the Caribbean Community before stops today in Guyana and Suriname, the US Department of State said.
At the Caribbean summit, Rubio is to meet with the leaders of Haiti, as well as host Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, the state department said.
Rubio has made an exemption to sweeping cuts in US assistance to allow the continuation of US support to the Haiti mission.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has yet to announce new ideas on Haiti, beyond revoking deportation protections for thousands of Haitians living in the US.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America, said that Rubio hoped to speak with Caribbean nations to hear their views on Haiti.
“The circumstances are dire,” Claver-Carone told reporters. “We are developing a strategy in order to be able to continue to support the Haitian National Police, in order to deal with this.”
“It is a strategy in development,” he added.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and