Jul 08,2021: Security forces in Haiti have shot dead four suspected killers of President Jovenel Moise and captured two others, the country’s police chief said on Wednesday, as the brazen assassination threatened to plunge the already impoverished, crisis-hit Caribbean nation deeper into chaos.
Police General Director Leon Charles described the four people killed as “mercenaries” and said that security forces were locked in a fierce gun battle with the men who assassinated the president at his home overnight.
“We blocked them en route as they left the scene of the crime,” Charles said in televised comments. “Since then, we have been battling with them.”
“They will be killed or apprehended.”
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 1am local time on Wednesday.
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. During the past year, Moise had been governing by decree after failing to hold elections, and in recent months, the opposition demanded he step down, saying he was leading it toward yet another grim period of authoritarianism.
Ever since he took over in 2017, Moise has faced calls to resign and mass protests – first for corruption allegations and his management of the economy, then for his increasing grip on power.
Lately, he presided over a worsening state of gang violence that rights activists said is linked to politics and business leaders using armed groups for their own ends.
