Haiti is still in shock. Four “mercenaries” involved in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse were killed and two others were arrested, the police of this Caribbean country already plunged into a deep crisis, where the state of siege was announced Wednesday evening. decreed.
President Moïse was killed by an armed commando in the middle of the night at his home. According to Acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph, the attackers were “foreigners who spoke English and Spanish”. The police said Wednesday evening to have pursued the suspected members of the commando immediately after the attack and that the police continued to carry out an operation in the evening in the heights of the capital Port-au-Prince.
“Four mercenaries were killed, two were intercepted under our control”, declared in a speech on television the director general of the national police of Haiti, Léon Charles. “Three police officers who had been taken hostage were recovered,” he added. No other information on the identity or motivations of the perpetrators of the assassination has been disclosed.
The First Lady “out of danger”
According to the local press citing the judge in charge of the case, the remains of President Moïse were found riddled with 12 bullets, and his office and his room were ransacked. Earlier, Prime Minister Claude Joseph had announced in a speech in Creole that he had decided to “declare a state of siege throughout the country”, thus granting enhanced powers to the executive for two weeks.
He promised that “the murderers of Jovenel Moïse would pay for what they did in court.”
According to the Haitian ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, the commando was made up of “professional” mercenaries who pretended to be officials of the American anti-drug agency.
The president’s wife, Martine Moïse, injured in the attack which took place around 1 a.m. local time was evacuated by plane to Miami on Wednesday. “The First Lady is out of danger, she is being treated in Florida, and according to the information we have, her situation is stable,” Claude Joseph said on television on Wednesday evening.
A country a little more destabilized
This assassination threatens to further destabilize the poorest country in the Americas, already facing a dual political and security crisis. The US State Department has called for the continuation of legislative and presidential elections in Haiti scheduled for September 26, 2021, with a run-off on November 21.
After the announcement of the assassination, all activities, shops and public transport were paralyzed in Port-au-Prince and in the provincial towns, according to witnesses. The streets of the capital were quiet on Wednesday, with no reinforced presence of police or security forces.