The body of police officer Samuel Kaetuai, who was killed in Haiti, has been flown back to Kenya.

Deputy Inspector General of the Administration Police Service, Gilbert Masengeli, led police officers in receiving the body on Monday night at the JKIA.

Kaetuai was killed by armed gangs while on the Kenya-led peacekeeping mission on February 23.

The officer, a member of the National Police Service’s Border Patrol Unit, was injured during an operation in Ségur-Savien, in the Artibonite region north of Port-au-Prince.

He was later airlifted to Aspen Level Two Hospital but succumbed to injuries, according to Multinational Security Support Force Commander Geoffrey Otunge

A postmortem has revealed that he died from a single bullet to his head.  

The body is being preserved at the Chiromo Funeral Parlour in Nairobi, where the family gathered yesterday.

“It is him. It is no longer a speculation. He died of a single gunshot at the head,” one of his kin told The Standard, adding the burial date is yet to be arrived at.

“We will hold a meeting with government officials tomorrow (Wednesday) to decide on burial date.”  

The  family said would issue a comprehensive report on the autopsy at their home in Naserian village, Kajiado County, today. 

Last week, Masengeli described the death of the officer as “a great loss” even as he dismissed reports that Kenyan officers were ill-equipped to deal with violent gangs in Haiti.

The death of the 28-year-old marked the first reported fatality among the personnel in the mission to stabilise the Caribbean nation.

Samuel was among the more than 600 police officers deployed to Haiti as part of a United Nations-backed mission.

The mission, approved in 2023, has however faced logistical and financial challenges, including funding delays and concerns over the officers’ welfare.

President William Ruto committed to sending up to 1,000 officers, making Kenya the leading contributor to the force.

Ruto sent the police team to Haiti despite a spirited battle pulled by rights groups and an order by the courts that they could not be deployed for security assignments outside Kenya.

Haiti has been grappling with a surge of gang violence, with the United Nations reporting that at least 5,601 people were killed in gang-related incidents last year—1,000 more than in 2023.

The UN also documented 315 killing of alleged gang members and 281 suspected summary executions by police. This ongoing violence has displaced over a million Haitians, according to the UN’s migration agency.