Jovenel Moïse.Photo: John Moore/Getty
On Wednesday evening, Haiti’s police chief Léon Charles said in a news conference, perBBC, “We blocked [the suspects] en route as they left the scene of the crime. Since then, we have been battling with them.”
“The pursuit of the mercenaries continues,” he added, according toNPR. “Their fate is fixed: They will fall in the fighting or will be arrested.”
Martine and Jovenel Moïse.Bahare Khodabande/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Joseph added that the group “attacked the private residence of the president of the Republic and mortally wounded him.”
The U.S. Embassy in Haiti said it was “restricting its direct-hire U.S. citizen staff to the Embassy compounds in Tabarre until further notice,” noting theembassy would be closed Wednesdaydue to ‘‘an ongoing security situation."
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“We do hope that the national police will continue to hunt them down because possibly there were more than six,” Edmondsaidof further potential suspects involved. “We are trying to see how we can make sure that those are caught and identified and be brought to justice.”
“The most important thing is we need to continue with the investigations and look and identify those who financed them, those who paid them to commit this horrible act,” he added.
As for a motive, Edmond declined to speculate on the reason for the attack while the investigation into it remains ongoing, noting, however, “it’s certain that the head of state cannot be killed just for play.”
Moise’s assassination comes as Haitigrapples with extreme violencein its capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as a growing humanitarian crisis and aspike in COVID-19 cases.
In the wake of Moise’s death,two men are now claimingto be the country’s rightful prime minister: interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who says “law and the constitution” designate him to the role, and Ariel Henry, who Moïse named prime minister one day prior to his assassination.
source: people.com
