A memorial service was Tuesday held in honor of slain Kenyan cop Samuel Tompoi Kaetuai at a church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
This came as an autopsy on the body of Kaetuai showed he died out of a single shot to his head.
The autopsy was conducted at the Chiromo mortuary in Nairobi on Tuesday afternoon. His family was present.
Kaetuai was killed on February 23 in Port-au-Prince in a clash with gangs.
In Haiti, Father Wilder Jean-Baptiste, the parish priest of Saint Jerome Parish in Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite (Diocese of Gonaïves), presided over a memorial mass in honor of Kaetuai.
Saint Jerome Parish, founded on December 25, 1725, was filled with worshippers, including schoolchildren, who gathered to pay tribute to the officer who lost his life in the line of duty during an operation against the Gran-Grif gang in Ségur.
During the service, Venson François, head of the Saint-Marc prosecutor’s office, read a condolence message from PNH Director General Normil Rameau, urging the public to continue cooperating with law enforcement to combat insecurity.
The head of the Kenyan contingent stationed in Artibonite, Philip Shiuma Wachiya, delivered a speech on behalf of MSS Force Commander Godfrey Otunge.
Local residents expressed their solidarity and called for continued operations against gangs in the region.
They vowed to support security forces on the ground and commended the bravery and determination of the joint PNH and MSS teams stationed at Pont-Sondé.
The officers were also thanked for their efforts in securing the area.
Kaetuai’s body arrived in Kenya on Monday, March 10, 2025, at 9:30 PM and was received at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) by the Deputy Inspector General of the Administration Police Service, Gilbert Masengeli.
Kenyan police officers are in Haiti to help the Caribbean country combat gangs terrorizing locals.
There are about 800 Kenyan police officers deployed there under the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSSM) in Haiti.
Haiti has been grappling with escalating gang violence, with the United Nations reporting that at least 5,601 people were killed in gang-related incidents last year 1,000 more than in 2023.
The UN also documented 315 lynchings of alleged gang members and 281 suspected summary executions by police.
This violence has displaced over a million Haitians, according to the UN’s migration agency.
Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis.
More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in the Caribbean nation in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.
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