Armored vehicle accident in Haiti kills 2 and injures 8 Kenyan police officers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — An accident involving two armored vehicles in Haiti’s capital left at least two people dead and eight police officers from Kenya injured, according to officials.

One dead and all those injured were part of a U.N.-backed mission fighting gangs in the troubled Caribbean country. The other fatality was a civilian, according to a statement from the mission’s spokesman, Jack Ombaka.

Three of those injured were in serious condition and airlifted to the neighboring Dominican Republic for treatment, authorities said.

The accident occurred Sunday evening along the Kenscoff-Pétion-Ville route in the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Ombaka said it happened when one of the armored vehicles that was towing a disabled one broke down.

It brought to three the number of Kenyan police officers killed in Haiti since the mission began more than a year ago. One was killed in a gang attack, and another remains missing and is presumed dead.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

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John F. McCarthy is a veteran journalist in the Caribbean, writing from the "Decision Space" where survival meets the surreal. His reporting steel was tempered by a lineage of legendary editors and broadcasters, including Ed Wynn Brant (The Bomb), Owen Eschenroder (Ann Arbor News), Lynelle Emanuel (BVI Beacon), and Charles Thanas (WSVI-TV). Alongside longtime colleague Kenneth C. "Casey" Clark, McCarthy has navigated the front lines of the territory’s history—from the 1997 volcanic "snow" to every major hurricane since Hugo. Known for leaning out of doorless helicopters to capture the "money shot," McCarthy now edits the V.I. Free Press, providing the essential link between the island's colonial past and its SpaceX future.