'Fake!' NPS dismisses reports Kenyan police deployed to Haiti are dead

The National Police Service (NPS) has dismissed reports that some of its officers deployed to Haiti on a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission have been killed.

This was after claims surfaced online that seven officers had been killed in the war-torn Caribbean nation as armed gangs mounted more pressure against the deployed troops.

An image circulated widely over the weekend showed a recent shot of the Kenyan police patrolling a street in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, with text on it claiming that the Kenyan officers had been reported dead.

“7 Kenya police reported dead in Haiti aki [President William Ruto] God will never forgive you," read the text.

On Monday morning, NPS however termed the image as fake.

The police service did not provide further information about the mission or the state of the Kenyan troops.

The first batch of about 400 Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti on June 25.

Kenyan President William Ruto had ceremonially seen the police off a day earlier in Nairobi, in what he described as a "historic" mission of solidarity.

Hundreds more police are expected from Kenya and other nations.