The Kenya Airways plane carrying a contingent of Kenya National Police Service officers has touched down in Haiti.

The officers arrived in violence-ravaged Haiti on Tuesday for a mission to defeat the Caribbean nation’s powerful gangs, just as deadly unrest gripped Nairobi during the Anti-Finance Bill mass protests.

President William Ruto, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, and his Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo saw off the officers on Monday for what President Ruto termed a “historic” mission of solidarity.

The 400 officers who boarded the plane are the first batch, with hundreds more expected to arrive in the coming days.

Kenya has pledged the support of 1,000 police officers for the mission.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden designated Kenya as a “major non-NATO ally” on Monday, making it the first sub-Saharan African nation to receive this designation.

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including Section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2321k) (the ‘Act’), I hereby designate Kenya as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States for the purposes of the Act and the Arms Export Control Act,” said a White House memorandum.

Biden first announced the decision to elevate Kenya to this designation in May, during a state visit by Kenyan President William Ruto to the White House, as they celebrated six decades of relations.

The Kenyan police will lead a multinational force against the powerful gangs whose deadly violence has spiked this year.

The Haitian National Police is underfunded and ill-equipped. A U.N. report notes that it has only around 4,000 officers on duty at a time in a country of more than 11 million inhabitants.

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