PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — Haiti is waiting desperately for the first members of a Kenyan-led multinational force tasked with ending the stranglehold of powerful and ultra-violent gangs, but their hoped-for arrival last week was delayed.

The deployment gained new urgency with the announcement Friday that gang members killed three missionaries, a Haitian and an American couple, leading to renewed calls for the force to get up and running.

“The security situation in Haiti cannot wait,” said a spokesperon for the US National Security Council after word emerged of the killings.

The UN-backed security mission
— in which the United States is providing logistical support, but not boots on the ground
— is supposed to help Haiti’s weak, outgunned police force defeat the powerful criminal gangs.

Gangs control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as swathes of the country, and have long terrorised people with random shootings, kidnappings and sexual violence.

There had been speculation that a first contingent of the Kenyan-led force would have arrived in the destitute Caribbean nation last week, to coincide with Kenyan President William Ruto’s state visit to Washington.

A Haitian Government source had told AFP that a first deployment of the multinational force was expected over the next few days.

Senior Kenyan officials have arrived in Haiti to carry out reconnaissance work.