Haiti’s security forces were locked in a fierce gun battle on Wednesday with assailants who assassinated President Jovenel Moise at his home overnight, the police said.
Police General Director Leon Charles disclosed this in televised comments late on Wednesday,
The exchange has further plunged the already impoverished, violence-wracked nation deeper into chaos.
Charles said the police had killed four of the “mercenaries” and captured two more, adding that security forces would not rest until they had all been dealt with.
“We blocked them en route as they left the scene of the crime.
“Since then, we have been battling with them.
“They will be killed or apprehended,” the police chief said.
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Moise, a 53-year-old former businessman who took office in 2017, was shot dead and his wife, Martine Moise, was seriously wounded when heavily armed assassins stormed the couple’s home in the hills above Port-au-Prince at around 1 a.m. local time (0500 GMT).
Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, told Reuters in an interview that the gunmen were masquerading as U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents as they entered Moise’s guarded residence under cover of nightfall – a move that would likely have helped them gain entry.
The brazen assassination, which drew condemnation from Washington and neighboring Latin American countries, came amid political unrest, a surge in gang violence, and a growing humanitarian crisis in the poorest nation in the Americas.
The government declared a two-week state of emergency to help it hunt down the assassins, whom Edmond described as a group of “foreign mercenaries” and well-trained killers.
The gunmen spoke English and Spanish, said interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who assumed the leadership of the country, where the majority speak French or Haitian Creole.
“I am calling for calm. Everything is under control,” Joseph said on television alongside Police General Director Charles.
“This barbaric act will not remain unpunished,” he added.
The first lady had been airlifted to Florida for treatment where she was in a stable condition, Joseph said.
Haiti, a country of about 11 million people, has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier dynastic dictatorship in 1986, and has grappled with a series of coups and foreign interventions.
U.S. President Joe Biden described the killing as “heinous” and called the situation in Haiti – which lies some 700 miles (1,125 km) off the Florida coast – worrisome.
“We stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a call with Joseph, expressed Washington’s commitment to work with Haiti’s government to support “democratic governance, peace, and security,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.
Many people in Haiti had wanted Moise to leave office. Ever since he took over in 2017, he faced calls to resign and mass protests – first over corruption allegations and his management of the economy, then over his increasing grip on power.
Lately, he presided over a worsening state of gang violence that rights activists say is linked to politics and business leaders using armed groups for their own ends.
In recent months, many districts of the capital Port-au-Prince had become no-go zones and one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders warned he was launching a revolution against the country’s business and political elites – although rights activists said he was more linked to Moise than the opposition.
Moise himself had talked of dark forces at play behind the unrest: fellow politicians and corrupt oligarchs unhappy with his attempts to clean up government contracts and to reform Haitian politics.
He provided no proof of this.(Reuters/NAN)