PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — More than 75 Guatemalan soldiers arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday to help Haiti’s overwhelmed police force curb gang violence, one day after the first contingent, bringing their number to more than 150, AFP journalists observed.

The Latin American troops join the Kenyan-led multinational force that began deploying last June. So far there are 400 officers — most of them Kenyan, but also some from Jamaica, Belize, and El Salvador — on site, out of an expected 2,500.

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.

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

Two journalists and a policeman were killed at the December 24 reopening of a hospital in Port-au-Prince, in a gang attack.

In early December more than 200 people were killed after an apparent order by a gang leader to target voodoo practitioners, according to the United Nations.

The month before, gunfire prompted the closing of the airport in the capital to commercial traffic.

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

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