A Kenyan police officer was killed on Sunday in Haiti, north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, the first casualty since the Kenyan-led security mission arrived in the Caribbean country in June 2024, the mission's authorities said.

The Multinational Security Support Mission to Haiti said in a statement on Sunday that the Kenyan officer was injured during an operation in the Artibonite department and then airlifted to a hospital, where he died.

Jack Ombaka, the mission's spokesperson, told Reuters that Sunday's casualty was the first the mission has suffered since the U.N.-backed anti-gang force arrived in the country, where rampant gang violence has displaced more than a million people.

The officer was killed during a confrontation with gang members, Ombaka wrote in a statement.

"We salute our fallen hero," the statement read. "We will pursue these gangs to the last man standing. We will not let you down."

The death on Sunday came amid a surge in gang-related violence in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince over the last week.