US official: No plans to send troops to Haiti after government request

Haiti requested the troops to help stabilize the country.

ByConor Finnegan, Aicha El Hammar Castano, an dJustin Gomez

The U.S. will not be sending troops to Haiti, according to a senior administration official, after the Caribbean nation’s government requested help to stabilize the country and secure critical infrastructure like oil reserves and its port and airport in the wake of the assassination of its president earlier this week.

The U.S. has agreed to send senior officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to Haiti to assist the government’s investigation of the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, the White House announced Friday.

The deployment of U.S. forces would have marked a major escalation of U.S. involvement.

“There are currently no plans to send U.S. military assistance to Haiti,” the official said.

The pledge for FBI and DHS assistance comes after two U.S. citizens were among the 17 men arrested by Haitian authorities for the head of state’s shocking murder, which threatens to plunge Haiti further into chaos amid competing claims to power.

The political and security crises afflicting the Caribbean country are rivaled only by the coronavirus pandemic. Haiti is one of only a handful of countries in the world that has yet to distribute a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and that will once again be delayed because of the deep insecurity, according to a source familiar with the matter.

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