Newsman: Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated overnight at his private home, according to a top government official who called the attack an “inhumane and barbaric act.”
In a statement released by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who will take over as interim president, Moïse was killed by an unidentified group. Some of the attackers were described as Spanish-speaking.
The first lady also suffered bullet wounds during the attack and has been hospitalized. First lady Martine Moïse was flown to Florida and receiving medical attention in Miami, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki called it a “horrific attack” in an MSNBC interview, saying the U.S. is still assessing the situation and that President Biden will be briefed this morning by his national security team.
Haiti’s national police chief said Wednesday night that four suspects were killed and two others arrested following the early-morning assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Léon Charles, director of Haiti’s national police, also said that three police officers had been held hostage but that police freed them.
Haiti’s government has blamed mercenaries for the attack.
Moïse, 53, assumed his presidency back in February 2017 following the resignation of his predecessor, Michel Martelly. Earlier this year, Haitian citizens and opposition leaders called for Moïse’s resignation. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas.
The gunmen were highly trained and spoke Spanish or English, Claude Joseph, the country’s interim prime minister, said, according to the Associated Press. The BBC pointed out that Haiti’s official languages are Creole and French.
Another official in the country called the assassins “well trained professional commandos” and “foreign mercenaries” who carried high-powered guns, were dressed in black and masqueraded as U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents.
Details of the attack have been scant and there is no known motive. The suspects killed in the shootout were not identified. Joseph’s office said the attack unfolded at the president’s private home in Port-au-Prince at about 1 a.m. local time and he was fatally wounded. Joseph told the paper that he is running the country.
Haiti’s National Police managed to kill four suspects and arrest two others they said were involved in the well-coordinated assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Law enforcement officials in the country say a gunfight between police and additional suspects is ongoing as of early Thursday.
Léon Charles, the country’s top cop, told reporters that police are still hunting for suspects, the New York Times reported.
“Four mercenaries were killed [and] two were intercepted under our control,” Charles said, according to the BBC. “Three policemen who had been taken hostage have been recovered. We blocked [the suspects] en route as they left the scene of the crime. Since then, we have been battling with them.”
Prime Minister Claud Joseph puts the nation’s security in the hands of the National Police of Haiti and the Armed Forces of Haiti.
“Democracy and the republic will win,” he said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Under Moïse’s reign, Haiti failed to hold elections, instead ruling by decree. Haiti’s general elections were expected to be held later this year prior to Moïse’s assassination.
Crime has spiked in the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince, more than half of the population earns less than $2 per day and the country continues to recover from catastrophic disasters of Hurricane Matthews in 2016 and the deadly earthquake in 2010.
The Times reported that Martine Moïse, the president’s wife, was also badly injured in the attack and is receiving treatment at a hospital in Florida. The BBC reported that she was listed in stable but critical condition.
Moïse was killed early Wednesday in what the country’s acting prime minister, Claude Joseph, described as a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.”
Joseph said a group of “highly trained and heavily armed” people attacked Moïse’s residence around 1 a.m., shooting the president and his wife.
Moïse was a 48-year-old businessman with little political experience when he was sworn in as president of Haiti on Feb. 7, 2017. The former banana producer inherited a nation in turmoil — one that had gone a year without an elected leader in place. He leaves it in chaos as well.
Taking office, he pledged to strengthen institutions, fight corruption and bring more investment and jobs to the hemisphere’s poorest nation. “We can change Haiti if we work together,” Moïse said on the grounds of what used to be the national palace — one of many buildings obliterated by a January 2010 earthquake that killed thousands of Haitians.
