Guatemalan forces arrive to fight gang violence

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

According to the Guatemalan government, the first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday. All of them were drafted from the military police.

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

The force is in Haiti to bolster a United Nations-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent an escalation of violence.

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

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

A small number of troops 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 two of Haiti’s largest prisonsfreeing about 3,700 prisoners.

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

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

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

Since then, the country has been engulfed in economic chaos, weak political control and increasingly violent gang wars.