Haitian President Jovenel Moise (JOVE’-nel mo-WEES’) was killed in an attack at his home before dawn on Wednesday, the country’s interim premier said.
A group of unidentified individuals raided Moise’s private residence in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, at around 1 a.m. local time. They gunned down the 53-year-old head of state and wounded his wife, Martine Moise, who was airlifted to an American hospital, according to a statement from Haitian interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph.
Joseph, who condemned what he called a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act,” said that the Caribbean country’s national police force and military had the situation under control and declared a state of emergency.
Reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, Haiti has also been in the midst of a constitutional crisis as Moise and opposition leaders disputed the end of his five-year presidential term and legislative elections remained interminably delayed.
The assailants, who remain at large, were “well-trained commandos” who were speaking Spanish and most likely came from outside Haiti, according to Bocchit Edmond, (BOE’-sheet ed-MOANED’) Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. Edmond said the Haitian government had video evidence of the group speaking Spanish. He also said they claimed to be agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which Edmond rejected.
The group was “highly trained and heavily armed,” according to Joseph, who called for an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting and an international investigation into the attack.
Haiti has been in a state of chaos for months now, with frequent gunfire and street skirmishes between armed groups, political demonstrations and strikes, and a coronavirus wave never brought under control. Cases of the virus were as high last month as they were one year ago, and the country has yet to distribute a single vaccine dose or receive any shipments from COVAX, the international program to provide vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
Source-ABC
