SANTO DOMINGO – The U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force – an international mobilization intended to help Haiti’s police fight powerful armed gangs in the Caribbean country – should fully deploy by October this year, Roberto Alvarez, foreign minister of the neighboring Dominican Republic, said on Tuesday.

Alvarez, who spoke after a meeting with U.S. embassy officials, said new troops from Chad are now being trained in the United States, and the Kenyan police who deployed to Haiti under an earlier model of the force should withdraw gradually.

NEW DEPLOYMENTS

* “These Chadian forces are training in the United States right now,” Alvarez said, adding the Kenyans forces would withdraw gradually. * “It will not be immediate but will give time for the new forces to arrive and familiarize themselves,” he said. * Alvarez said deployments should begin from the start of April, and the force should reach its full capacity of 5,500 by October this year. * U.N. officials had earlier said the full deploymentshould arrive by summer or autumn this year. * The force’s initial 12-month mandate expires at the end of September 2026, but the U.N. Security Council may vote to renew it. * A spokesperson for the Gang Suppression Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CONTEXT

* The Gang Suppression Force was introduced as a larger successor to the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission, but no significant deployments have arrived since its approval last September. * Currently, the force is made up of mostly Kenyan police, as well as smaller numbers from a handful of countries in Central America and the Caribbean. * The previous mission was hamstrung by a lack of troops, funds, and equipment. Both the GSF and MSS rely on voluntary contributions from member states. * Chad in October 2023 told the U.N. it was willing to contribute troops and police to the MSS, without specifying numbers or a timeline. At the time, the U.N. also received similar pledges from Benin and Bangladesh. None has so far been deployed. * Thousands of Haitians have been killed and over a million displaced in clashes between security forces and gangs that arelargely armed with guns trafficked from the U.S.

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