Ariel Henry, who has been responsible for the assassination of President Jovenel Moîse in July, said to have been attacked on Saturday at the celebrations of the National Day at Gonaïves.
Le Monde with AFP
The Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry denounced, Monday, January 3, in an interview at the France-Press agency (AFP), an attempt at assassination against his person, during the celebrations of the national holiday organized on Saturday in the City of Gonaïves.
“We tried something against me, personally,” said the head of the Haitian government, who says to feel “in the live line of people”. Ariel Henry has made the management of current affairs since the assassination of President Jovenel Moses by an armed commando on July 7th.
Clashes between police and armed groups erupted Saturday during the National Day celebrations in Gonaïves, 150 km north of the capital Port-au-Prince. Under bursts of firearms shots, Ariel Henry and the official officials were forced to flee the city in which Haiti’s declaration of independence was signed, the 1 er January 1804 . On photos transmitted to AFP by its desk, a bullet impact is visible on the windshield of the prime minister’s armor.
money in exchange for a visit without attack
At the end of December, groups of citizens and members of Gonaïves armed gangs, third largest city in Haiti, had violently expressed their opposition to the coming of the Prime Minister.
“I knew I was running out this risk,” confirmed Ariel Henry. “One can not accept that bandits from whatever environment they are, for basic pecuniary reasons, want to make blackmail in the state,” he added, stating that gang members asked for money in exchange for a visit without attack to the Gonaïves.
The assassination, six months ago, from Haitian President in his private residence has amplified the deep political crisis in which the Caribbean country has been fled for years. If several Haitian citizens, two Americans of Haitian origin and about fifteen Colombian nationals, presumed involved in the murder of Jovenel Moses, are incarcerated at Port-au-Prince Prison since this summer, the investigation into the attack against The head of state shows no sign of progress. In the absence of sufficient evidence, one of the suspects, arrested in October in Jamaica, will be sent back to Colombia, reported Saturday the Jamaican media.
A request for international support
Without functional parliament for two years and with a judicial power paralyzed by the lack of judges at the highest court of the country, Haiti sinks into a governance crisis that aggravates the poverty already endemic. The growing handmark of gangs on the national territory Mine the hopes of improving the living conditions of the population, victim of the crapful kidnappings committed daily by the armed gangs. At least 950 kidnappings were identified in Haiti in 2021, according to the Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research, Organization based in Port-au-Prince.
Two years after the departure of the last United Nations police officers, the Prime Minister ensures that national forces are able to restore security. “So far, I have never asked for foreign troops”, Advance Ariel Henry, asking the international community of training “and possibly material”.
“With our men, with the police, we will get there, we must do it,” he concluded. Underwater facing gangs with a war arsenal, Haitian police faces a lack of staff, number of agents who have dropped off to seek a better future abroad.