Wed 07 July 2021:
Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his private residence by a group of unnamed gunmen, the interim prime minister said on Wednesday.
First Lady Martine Moïse is hospitalized following the attack late Tuesday, interim Premier Claude Joseph said.
The Haitian Embassy in Canada also confirmed Moïse was killed in a tweet.
C’est avec beaucoup de tristesse que nous confirmons l’assassinat du Président Jovenel Moise, au cours d’une attaque en sa résidence par des mercenaires. La Première dame, blessée, reçoit les soins nécessaires. Nos pensées vont à la famille présidentielle et à toute la nation.
— Ambassade d’Haïti au Canada (@EmbHaiti_ca) July 7, 2021
A group of unknown individuals, some of whom spoke Spanish, attacked the president’s private residence and lethally wounded the head of state,” Claude Joseph said in a statement.
The prime minister condemned this “disgusting, inhumane and barbaric” attack and called for calm. The security situation is under control of the national police and the armed forces, he said.
Moïse, 53, had been ruling by decree for more than two years after the country failed to hold elections, which led to Parliament being dissolved.
Opposition leaders have accused him of seeking to increase his power, including approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.
In recent months, opposition leaders demanded that he step down, arguing that his term legally ended in February 2021.
The nation of more than 11 million people had grown increasingly unstable and disgruntled under Moïse’s rule. Its economic, political and social woes have deepened, with gang violence spiking heavily in the capital of Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer at times in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day.
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