Haitian President Jovenel Moïse assassinated overnight in his home by gunmen, says acting prime minister

 

The president of Haiti was assassinated overnight by a group of gunmen in his private residence, Haiti’s interim prime minister said in a short statement Wednesday, sparking concern about worsening upheaval in the Caribbean country beset by political instability and growing gang violence.

In this Aug. 28, 2019, file photo, Haiti's President Jovenel Moise speaks during an interview in his office in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Moïse was assassinated after a group of unidentified people attacked his private residence, the country’s interim prime minister said in a statement Wednesday, July 7, 2021. Moïse's wife, First Lady Martine Moïse, is hospitalized, interim Premier Claude Joseph said. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, File)

President Jovenel Moïse was killed and his wife wounded by unidentified assailants, some of whom spoke Spanish, according to interim prime minister Claude Joseph.

Joseph called the attack “odious, inhuman and barbaric” and said Haiti’s security situation was under the control of the country’s armed forces and police.

The Canadian Embassy in Haiti confirmed the assassination in a statement and described the attackers as “mercenaries.” Neighboring Dominican Republic, meanwhile, announced the closure of bordering crossings between the two countries.

Moïse, 52, was elected to a five-year presidential term in 2016. But a dispute over the election results delayed the start of his term by a year — which this February he insisted entitled him to remain president for an additional year. His opponents disagreed, and in February, when they say his term ended, declared Supreme Court Judge Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis to be interim president.

The dispute sparked a constitutional crisis in the western hemisphere’s poorest nation, where prices for basic necessities are surging alongside growing gang violence in the capital Port-au-Prince. Just in recent weeks fighting between rival gangs and police has displaced thousands of people in the capital, according to the Associated Press.

Human rights activists have accused Moïse’s government of having ties to some of these street gangs. His critics have also accused him of seeking to subvert Haiti’s teetering democracy to hold on to power. In January of 2020, Moïse dissolved the country’s parliament and had been ruling by decree since.

© Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images Jovenel Moïse, President of Haiti, addresses the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on Sep. 27, 2018.

But Moïse had also gained the backing of the Trump and Biden administration, in part because of his willingness to take on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In late June, Moïse’s government announced a new date for a constitutional referendum, which it had previously postponed twice it said due to the pandemic.

Under Moïse’s plan, Haiti is to hold the referendum on Sept. 26, along with previously scheduled presidential and legislative elections.