The gift to the Jesus Winner Ministry in the Roysambu suburb of Nairobi of 20m shillings ($155,000; £120,000) drew criticism from some young Kenyans struggling with the high cost of living.

Ruto has defended his donation and has offered a similar gift to another church in Eldoret.

Last year, both Kenya’s Catholic and Anglican leaders rejected donations, arguing that there was a need to protect the church from being used for political purposes.

At least 38 people were arrested during the clashes before being released without charge.

The clashes saw protesters try to get into the church and light fires and use rocks to block nearby roads.

But the church service went ahead with tight security for worshippers, local media reported.

Bishop Edward Mwai said that unnamed people had mobilised “thugs” to disrupt the church service, reports the Star website.

Ruto, an evangelical Christian, defended the donation, saying it was an attempt to address the country’s moral decay.

“Kenya must know God so that we shame the people who are telling us that we cannot associate with the church,” the Nation site quoted him as saying at another church, in Eldoret.

Kenyans have been angered by a series of tax rises introduced since Ruto was elected in 2022.

He says they were needed to pay off the huge debts he inherited from the previous government but many Kenyans argue that he should first tackle public waste and corruption.

Last year, a wave of nationwide protests forced Ruto to withdraw his Finance Bill, which contained a series of tax rises.

The officer is the first casualty suffered by the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission (MSS).

The force was sent to Haiti in June last year to help restore order to the country, where gangs have seized control of almost the entire capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as large swathes of rural areas.

More than 5,500 people were killed in gang-related violence in Haiti in 2024 and more than a million people have fled their homes.

The commander of the multinational force, Gen Godfrey Otunge, said the Kenyan police officer had been injured in Artibonite, a region north of the capital.

Gen Otunge said the officer, who has not been named, had been immediately airlifted to hospital, where he died a short while later.

Jack Ombaka, the spokesman for the MSS, said in a statement sent to Reuters news agency that the officer was a “fallen hero” who “was killed while fighting for the people of Haiti”, while Kenya’s foreign ministry said it was “heartbroken by the loss” of the officer.

Mr Ombaka said the officer had been shot by a gang member during a security operation in the town of Pont-Sondé.

He added that the multinational force would “pursue these gangs to the last man standing”.

The MSS was boosted earlier this month by the arrival of an additional 200 Kenyan police officers, but the force is outgunned and outmanned by the gangs, which continue to arm themselves with powerful weapons illegally smuggled from the US.

The future of the multinational force – which also has officers from Bahamas, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Jamaica among its ranks – was thrown into doubt some weeks ago when the Trump administration ordered a freeze on foreign aid programmes.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later approved a waiver for US funds destined for the MSS and Haiti’s National Police, but it is not yet clear whether the US government supports turning the MSS into a UN peacekeeping operation, which would make its funding more secure.

Kamlesh Pattni, and four others including his wife and brother-in-law, will have their assets frozen, a statement from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office read.

He was implicated in one of Kenya’s biggest corruption scandals, Goldenberg, which is believed to have cost the country at least $600m (£470m). He has since faced allegations of involvement in the illicit gold trade in Zimbabwe, which he has previously denied.

“Illicit gold is an assault on the legitimate trade of a valuable commodity, fuelling corruption, undermining the rule of law, and entrenching human rights abuses such as child labour,” read the UK statement.

It goes to say that Russia uses illegal gold to fund its war in Ukraine.

“Russia uses the illicit gold trade to launder money and evade sanctions, and in doing so bolsters [President Vladimir] Putin’s war efforts.

“The UK and other Western countries banned the import of Russian gold in 2022 to stop Moscow’s ability to fund the war.

The UK said the sanctions were meant to “disrupt and deter” the business dealings of Pattni.He was allegedly one of the key architects of the Goldenberg scandal – a major gold and currency fraud in the 1990s which almost bankrupted Kenya and involved senior members of Kenya’s government.

He faced a trial in 2006 for his alleged role in the scheme, but proceedings collapsed. Pattni later became a self-proclaimed pastor.According to the US Treasury, Pattni was friends with former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and used this relationship to make money by exploiting the country’s natural resources.

“This fraudulent scheme robbed Zimbabwe’s citizens of the benefit of those natural resources while enriching corrupt government officials and criminal actors,” it read.

Pattni was implicated in Al-Jazeera’s explosive investigation into the “gold mafia” in Zimbabwe. He denied any involvement in money laundering or gold smuggling.

The US Treasury said Pattni’s illegal network spanned multiple countries.The announcement comes as the UK government outlined a new programme to help tackle global corruption.