In the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated. Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement that around 1:00 am unidentified gunmen, some of whom spoke Spanish, “attacked the president’s private residence” in the capital Port-au-Prince, killing him. He added that his wife Martine Moïse was also hit: she suffered some injuries from gunshots.
Joseph called for calm and said the military and police have the situation under control.
Moïse was 53 years old. He was first elected president of the Caribbean country with the center-right party Tèt Kale in the 2015 elections, which were then canceled for fraud. He was re-elected the following year and began to govern on February 7, 2017.
In the last few years had been accused among other things of having repressed political opponents and wanting to remain in office beyond his mandate. In 2019, for example, in Haiti there were violent protests to ask for his resignation, in which a few dozen people died. Moïse was also embroiled in a corruption scandal, accused along with other ministers and officials of illegally managing funds of up to $ 2 billion.
Haiti, located on the island of Hispaniola, the same as the Dominican Republic, is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world, and has lived for years in a state of constant humanitarian emergency: in 2004 it was hit by Hurricane Jeanne, in 2010 from one of the most destructive earthquakes of all time, in which 200 thousand people died, and in 2016 fromMatthew. The coronavirus pandemic has further aggravated the situation.
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