Video footage released on Wednesday, May 15, showed how guns manufactured in the United States were being smuggled into Haiti.
Coincidentally, this happened just a week before Kenya’s expected deployment to the troubled Caribbean nation on May 23.
The guns as revealed by CNN are smuggled through the Central Plateau which had been for years used as a drug smuggling route.
According to the United Nations, the guns are then transferred through Haiti’s mountainous and hard-to-reach rural areas before finding their way into the capital Port-au-Prince.
For a country that is struggling to feed its nation or provide medical supplies, the video footage showed that the guns arrive in the plateau through Cessna planes.
One gang leader, Vita Lom Innocent, even confessed on camera that it was easier to import guns than food and basic supplies.
The Cessnas land in the dark of the night and under the radar to avoid detection by Haitian security forces.
Some of the guns are also smuggled across the land border or by sea from the United States.
Innocent refused to confirm his US contacts by stating, “ I do not go to the US, I cannot accuse the US to say weapons come from there.”
Despite him being cagey, experts analysed the weapons and confirmed without unreasonable doubt that they had been manufactured in the US.
Due to the plentiful of guns and ammo in Haiti, 80 per cent of Port-au-Prince is now controlled by the gangs.
“At every corner, you do not know what you are going to come across not to mention the constantly shifting gang boundaries,” UN World Food Programme Country Director Jean-Martin Bauer explained the challenges of delivering humanitarian aid in the capital.
Once Kenyan police land in Haiti, they will come into face with 5 million hungry Haitian citizens who are being terrorised by multiple gangs with sophisticated weapons.
It has not been made public on the rules of engagement to be followed by the Kenyan police or what type of weapons they will carry to the Caribbean nation.
The gangs have already taken over what was once a flour mill and are using the facility as storage for imported guns and ammo.
