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A contingent of 150 Guatemalan soldiers has arrived in Haiti, tasked with helping to restore order amid the chaos wrought by armed gangs.<\/p>\n
A first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all drafted from the military police, according to Guatemala’s government. <\/p>\n
A state of emergency has been in place<\/a> across the Caribbean nation for months as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of much of the capital Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n The forces are in Haiti to boost a United Nations-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent violence from escalating. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kenya sent nearly 400 police officers in June and July last year to help combat the gangs.<\/p>\n This was the first tranche of a UN-approved international force that will be made up of 2,500 officers from various countries.<\/p>\n 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 operation’s largest funder.<\/p>\n In March 2024, armed gangs stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons<\/a>, freeing around 3,700 inmates.<\/p>\n The Ouest Department – a region including Port-au-Prince – was originally put under a state of emergency on 3 March, after escalating violence gripped the capital<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters in recent decades have left Haiti the poorest nation in the Americas.<\/p>\n