Fifteen months after it first arrived in the Caribbean, the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti (MMAS) is set to end on Thursday, October 2, with a mixed record. Speaking in New York during the annual United Nations General Assembly, Kenyan President William Ruto welcomed the fact that his country "stepped forward, offered to lead and deployed our officers" to fight the gangs that control the country and its capital, Port-au-Prince, while also acknowledging the limits of the mission.

Since the premeditated murder of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, 2021, the collapse of political institutions has only accelerated in the Caribbean nation of some 12 million people. The Kenyan president stressed that the mission led by his country's police had succeeded in securing Port-au-Prince airport, retaking the presidential palace and reopening several key roads.

Yet, beyond these isolated successes, the security force was never able to fully carry out its mission due to a lack of personnel and equipment. Ruto lamented that it "operated below 40% of its authorized personnel strength," and was structurally "underfunded, underequipped." Of the 2,500 police officers originally planned, fewer than 1,000 were actually deployed in Haiti.

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