A Kenyan police officer who was on patrol with the international security force in Haiti has been killed in a confrontation with gang members.

The officer, 26-year-old Police Constable Samuel Kitwai, is the first casualty suffered by the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS).

The force was sent to Haiti in June last year to help restore order to the country, where gangs have seized control of almost the entire capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as large swathes of rural areas.

More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.

The commander of the multinational force, Gen Godfrey Otunge, said Constable Kitwai had been injured in Artibonite, a region north of the capital.

Gen Otunge said the officer had been immediately airlifted to hospital, where he died a short while later. His family has been notified.

Jack Ombaka, the spokesman for the MSS, said in a statement sent to Reuters news agency that Constable Kitwai was a "fallen hero" who "was killed while fighting for the people of Haiti", while Kenya's foreign ministry said it was "heartbroken by the loss" of the officer.

Mr Ombaka said the officer had been shot by a gang member during a security operation in the town of Pont-Sondé.

He added that the multinational force would "pursue these gangs to the last man standing".

A spokesman for Kenya's National Police Service added that the MSS was working "tirelessly" in collaboration with Haiti's police force to restore peace and stability in the Caribbean country.

The MSS was boosted earlier this month by the arrival of an additional 200 Kenyan police officers, but the force is outgunned and outmanned by the gangs, which continue to arm themselves with powerful weapons illegally smuggled from the US.

The future of the multinational force - which also has officers from Bahamas, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica among its ranks - was thrown into doubt some weeks ago when the Trump administration ordered a freeze on foreign aid programmes.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later approved a waiver for US funds destined for the MSS and Haiti's National Police, but it is not yet clear whether the US government supports turning the MSS into a UN peacekeeping operation, which would make its funding more secure.

On Monday, the US Ambassador to Kenya, Marc Dillard, expressed condolences to the family of the killed officer, saying that "the United States is grateful for the courageous Kenyan police who are serving in harm's way to keep our world safer".