Port-au-Prince, HAITI (AFP) — More than 80 soldiers from Guatemala and El Salvador arrived in Haiti on Friday as part of the Kenyan-led multinational mission to bolster the national police force in the face of spiralling gang violence, a police official told AFP.

The contingent of 75 Guatemalan and eight Salvadoran soldiers will be joined by additional troops in the coming days, deputy police spokesman Lionel Lazarre told AFP.

The personnel are part of the Kenyan-led force that began deploying in June last year. So far, there are 400 officers — most of them Kenyan, but also some from Jamaica and Belize — on site out of an expected 2,500.

But the force is under-equipped as it attempts to stamp out Haiti’s powerful, well-armed gangs, who have been accused of murder, rape, and kidnappings for ransom.

The United Nations estimates that the gangs control about 85 per cent of the capital Port-au-Prince, and gang violence has not abated in the crisis-wracked Caribbean country since the multinational force arrived.

Two journalists covering the reopening of a hospital in Port-au-Prince and a policeman were killed on December 24 in a shootout with gangs.

Attacks by armed groups have been escalating in multiple areas of the capital for more than a month.

In early December, more than 200 people were killed in an apparent hit order issued by a gang leader targeting voodoo practitioners, the UN says.

The month before, gunfire prompted the closing of the airport in Port-au-Prince to commercial traffic.

Authorities in Haiti’s transitional government have called on the UN to transform the Kenyan-led force into a full-fledged peacekeeping mission.

But the request, conveyed by the United States, has run into opposition from China and Russia, which have veto power in the UN Security Council.