The first group of soldiers and military policemen from Latin America have arrived in Port-au-Prince to join the armed international security mission in Haiti’s fight against terrorizing gangs.
The 83 security personnel included an advance team of eight soldiers from El Salvador and the first 75 of 150 military police officers from Guatemala.
While the Salvadorans will be providing casualty and medical evacuations in support of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, the Guatemalans will be joining operations to take down Haiti’s gangs.
Their presence adds a much requested beefed-up military presence to the fight, which until now has been mainly police-led.
The group’s arrival has been long awaited and comes at a critical moment for Haiti, which is seeing an alarming rise in armed attacks in the metropolitan area.
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