In photos broadcast by his cabinet, the ruler’s armored vehicle was hit by a bullet in the windshield on Saturday.
The Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, denounced, in an interview this Monday, an assassination attempt against him committed during the celebrations of the national holiday organized on Saturday in the city of Gonaïves.
“They have tried something against me, personally,” said the Haitian head of government, who has led the nation since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse by an armed commando on July 7.
“My life is in the sights of the people,” he added to AFP.
Clashes between the police and armed groups broke out on Saturday during the celebration of the national holiday in Gonaïves, 150 km north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Under bursts of gunfire, Henry and the officers present were forced to hastily leave the city where Haiti’s declaration of independence was signed on January 1, 1804.
In photos transmitted to AFP by his cabinet, a bullet is seen in the windshield of the prime minister’s armored vehicle.
At the end of December, groups of citizens and members of armed gangs from Gonaïves, the third largest city in Haiti, violently expressed their opposition to the arrival of the president.
Blackmail
“I knew I was taking that risk,” Henry confirmed by phone.
“It cannot be accepted that bandits from the environment who are, for despicably pecuniary reasons, want to blackmail the State,” he said, specifying that gang members asked for money in exchange for not attacking him during his visit to Gonaïves.
The assassination, six months ago, of the Haitian president in his private residence amplified the deep political crisis in which the Caribbean country has been immersed for years.
Although several Haitians, two Americans and some 15 Colombians allegedly implicated in Moïse’s murder were incarcerated in the Port-au-Prince prison since the summer, the investigation into the assassination does not appear to be progressing.
Due to lack of evidence, one of the suspects arrested in October in Jamaica will be returned to Colombia, Jamaican media reported on Saturday.
Without a functioning parliament for two years and with a judiciary paralyzed by the absence of judges in the country’s highest court, Haiti is sinking into a governance crisis that exacerbates the already endemic poverty.
The increasing control of gangs over the national territory weighs down hopes of an improvement in living conditions for the population, victims of kidnappings committed daily by armed gangs.
Two years after the last United Nations police officers left the country, the prime minister assures that the national forces are capable of restoring security.
“Until now, I have never asked for (the arrival of) foreign troops,” Henry told AFP. However, he asked the international community for training support “and eventually material.”
“With our men, with the police, we are going to achieve it, we must achieve it,” he concluded.
Without adequate equipment to confront gangs with a war arsenal, the police are also dealing with a shortage of personnel, as many officers left office to seek a better future abroad.
At least 950 kidnappings were recorded in Haiti in 2021, according to the Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research, which is based in Port-au-Prince. (I)
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