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Kenya deploys more police officers to Haiti to tackle gang violence
Kenyan police officers arrive at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 18, 2025. The officers are part of a multinational force that aims to curb gang violence in Haiti.
NAIROBI, KENYA — January 18, 2025 6:09
Kenya's interior minister said the east African nation has deployed another 217 police officers to Haiti as part of a multinational force to curb gang violence.
Kipchumba Murkomen said in a statement Saturday that the police officers left Kenya on Friday.
"The Kenya-led mission has made tremendous progress in reducing gang violence, earning praise across the globe," said Mukomen, who shared a photo of himself with some of the officers aboard a plane.
Kenya's "commitment to this historic mission is unwavering," he said.
Kenya first sent troops to the Caribbean nation in June and the total deployment now exceeds 600. Kenya's President William Ruto has pledged to deploy 1,000 troops as part of the United Nations-backed force in Haiti.
Gang violence has left more than 700,000 Haitians homeless in recent years, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
More than 5,600 people were reported killed across Haiti last year, according to the United Nations. The number of killings increased by more than 20% compared with all of 2023, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped, it said.
Director-General visits flagship Ethiopia wheat farm
18/02/2023
Koka, Ethiopia – The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) QU Dongyu today visited a large-scale irrigated wheat farm at Koka, about 100 km south-east of Addis Ababa, to witness the Government of Ethiopia’s push for wheat self-sufficiency.
High-level authorities from the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) briefed the Director General and his delegation on the strategies and inputs that Ethiopia has applied when embarking on large-scale production of wheat.
During the event, Girma Amante, Minister of Agriculture, explained the country’s initiative of curbing wheat import through implementing winter irrigation since 2019 has been registering promising results. However, the demand is still high to satisfy both domestic consumption and export requests. For that reason, he said, the country will expand its production with an additional 1 million hectares of irrigated wheat in 2023. This will enable them to harvest 56 million quintals and increase the total wheat production of the country to 107 million quintals.
Recognizing the bold measures and commitments the Ethiopian Government showed to engage in large-scale wheat production, the FAO Director-General said the country has demonstrated a great deal of commitment to boosting the production of wheat.
“Ethiopia has a great potential for agricultural growth, with the introduction of diversified varieties of seed for different ecological zones, supported by new digital technologies, innovation and science across the entire value chain,” he underscored.
The Director-General was in Ethiopia to attend the 36th African Union Summit and to speak at a side event on nutrition with African Heads of State, co-hosted by FAO, the African Union and the African Development Bank.
About wheat production in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has engaged in large-scale wheat production, using modern and traditional irrigation systems during the winter season. The purpose of this initiative is to boost an average productivity of 40 quintals per hectare by applying innovation and technology that are appropriate to winter irrigation, which will make up to 52 million quintals of additional wheat production.
Currently, the government is working on cluster wheat farms, setting an annual target of plantation on 1 300 000 hectares. However, the plantation has already exceeded the set target, standing at 1’346.815 hectares (103.60 per cent). Using the Global Positioning System (GPS) data, the government extensively used irrigations, tractors and water pumps, as well as fertilizers and pesticides to boost wheat cultivation at different stages (growing, flowering, maturing and harvested), which so far provided from 48 to 64 quintals per hectare yield.