The deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti to help crack down on lawlessness fueled by criminal gangs is on hold until a new government is formed in the Caribbean nation, Kenyan officials said on Tuesday.
Kenya had agreed to send a security force to Haiti, but the agreement was reached with Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who on Monday evening agreed to step down once a new transitional government was formed.
“The agreement signed with the president is still valid, even if the deployment will not happen now because we will definitely need a government in office to collaborate with,” said Salim Swaleh, a key spokesman for Kenya’s foreign ministry. “Why don’t you just send the police into the streets of Port-au-Prince without an administration in place.”
Haiti’s prime minister announced his intention to resign after being stranded for days in Puerto Rico following a takeover by criminal gangs of much of the Haitian capital that made it impossible for him to return. His decision followed several days of violent attacks on police stations, prisons, major airports, seaports and other state institutions.
Mr Henry’s resignation has brought further uncertainty to the already chaotic situation on the Caribbean island, which has been engulfed in recent months by an extraordinary wave of gang violence.
Mr Henry, 74, had traveled to Kenya to make final arrangements for the East African country to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti to help quell the violence. The mission was authorized by the United Nations and largely funded by the United States, which on Monday pledged to provide more aid.
The mission had already been delayed by Kenyan court rulings, but the agreement Henry and Kenya signed was intended to clear the last remaining legal obstacle for the deployment to proceed.
Gang leaders took advantage of Mr. Henry’s absence to take to the streets and sow further bedlam. Orchestrated attacks on two prisons freed thousands of inmates. Gunfire at the main airport in Port-au-Prince, the capital, forced the suspension of flights; homes were ransacked and looted throughout the city.
Every day there were reports from the United Nations of civilians killed by gang fire.
The gangs threatened civil war if Mr. Henry did not resign. Mr. Henry, who was appointed prime minister, had become widely unpopular among many Haitians because of his failure to protect people from criminal gangs and his apparent reluctance to hold elections.
Leaders of Caribbean nations, who have led the push to create a transition council that would guide Haiti after Henry’s departure, met Monday in Jamaica to finalize a path forward.
It was not at all clear when Mr. Henry, who had faced increasing pressure to resign both in Haiti and abroad, would actually do so.
Mr Henry’s tenure was troubled from the start.
A neurosurgeon who has lived in France for nearly 20 years, Mr. Henry led the country’s public health response to the 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera epidemic. He also worked at the Interior Ministry. A veteran of two previous presidential administrations, he was a member of the opposition party when President Jovenel Moïse chose him to become prime minister in 2021.
But Mr. Moïse was assassinated a few days after that appointment, and Mr. Henry was never formally elected by parliament.
Haiti’s electoral system is so messy that no elections have been held in eight years. Without a sitting Parliament to choose a new prime minister, many Haitians viewed Henry’s time in power as illegitimate.
But the Biden administration and other countries supported him, which helped Henry stay in office. With him departing now, Kenyan officials say they will wait until a new governing body is in place.
“We will definitely have to work with some sort of administration for you to fulfill this mandate,” Swaleh said. “So if there isn’t any, obviously, we can’t just send the police out there.”
A spokesman for Mr. Henry, Jean-Junior Joseph, said Mr. Henry would resign once the transition board is appointed.
“We are waiting for this to happen,” he said.
David C. Adams AND André Paultre contributed to the reporting.
