EU to send police officers to Haiti

January 26, 2010

The European Union has announced that it will send a police force consisting of up to 350 officers to Haiti, following the recent magnitude 7.0 earthquake there, which is thought to have killed up to 200,000 people and left 1.5 million without homes.

"There is an agreement on a collective contribution of gendarmes," said a European diplomat to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, commented: “All the countries which form part of the European police force are willing to participate; France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Romania, are ready to offer personnel, each according to its capabilities. Together we will represent the EU in this role of guaranteeing the security and above all the arrival of the emergency aid which the Haitians’ need.”

According to AFP, the largest contributors to the force would be France and Italy.

The United States, meanwhile, deployed 20,000 of its soldiers into the earthquake-ravaged country, whilst the United Nations says it will send out about 3,500 extra troops into the vicinity.

The EU has promised upwards of 400 million euros to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake.