A contingent of 150 Guatemalan soldiers has arrived in Haiti with a mission to help restore order amid the chaos caused by armed gangs.

According to the Guatemalan government, the first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all drafted from the military police.

A state of emergency is in place The government has been battling violent gangs that control much of Port-au-Prince for months.

The troops are in Haiti to bolster a U.N.-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent an escalation in violence.

In June and July last year, Kenya sent nearly 400 police officers to help combat the criminal gang.

This is the first international force approved by the United Nations and will consist of 2,500 officers from different countries.

Small numbers of troops from Jamaica, Belize and El Salvador are also in Haiti as part of the mission, with the United States being the largest funder of the operation.

March 2024, Armed gangs attack Haiti’s two largest prisonsreleasing approximately 3,700 prisoners.

The Western Department – the region that includes the capital Port-au-Prince – was initially placed under a state of emergency on March 3, after Violence escalates in capital.

In recent decades, chronic instability, dictatorships and natural disasters have turned Haiti into the poorest country in the Americas.

2021, President Jovenel Moise assassinated An unknown gunman in Port-au-Prince.

Since then, the country has been plagued by economic dislocation, a breakdown in political control and increasingly violent gang wars.