Taiwan delivers protective equipment to Haiti security forces

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Taiwan's embassy in Haiti on Thursday presented Haiti's national police and army with protective equipment such as helmets, tactical kneepads, eye protectors and bulletproof vests, to support their fight against powerful gangs.

Haiti's prime minister's office said 400 individual kits had been delivered, making a total of 800 kits from Taiwan in two years.

"This donation is not only a material contribution; it also reflects a sincere and lasting friendship between Haiti and Taiwan," Prime Minister Garry Conille said in a statement.

The Caribbean nation is one of a handful of Taiwan's remaining diplomatic allies, but also holds a trade office in Beijing. China claims the democratically governed island, a major world supplier of electronics, as its own territory.

A swathe of countries in the Americas including neighboring Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and have cut ties with Taiwan in recent years in favor of economic giant China, while countries such as Guatemala and Paraguay are aiming to keep recognizing Taiwan while courting Chinese trade.

The United States recognizes China diplomatically but has unofficial ties with Taipei, to which it sells arms, and U.S. President Joe Biden has said he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan.

The U.S. is also the top funder of a U.N.-ratified security mission that recently deployed a first contingent to Haiti after its government requested support in 2022 to help fight heavily armed gangs that have now taken over most of the capital.

So far, just 400 Kenyan police have deployed of some 2,900 troops pledged by a handful of countries. Kenyan and Haitian media have reported lack of key equipment and delays in paying their wages.

With little over a month left in the mission's mandate, results have been scarce with many pledges left unfulfilled. Nearly 580,000 people are internally displaced and millions are going hungry.

Haiti's army was reinstated in 2017 after it was dismantled during the 1990s, and it is the national police that leads efforts against the country's gangs. The police counted about 12,000 officers by end-May, according to U.N. data, down by more than 1,000 from the start of the year.

(Reporting by Steven Aristil and Sarah Morland; Editing by Sandra Maler)