Jovenel Moise and first lady Martine attending a ceremony at a memorial for the tenth anniversary of the January 2010 earthquake
(Picture: REUTERS)Four suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse have been shot dead in a running gun battle with security forces.
Authorities said two others were arrested and three police officers were being held hostage were freed in the shootout in the capital Port-au-Prince.
“The pursuit of the mercenaries continues,” the director of Haiti’s National Police, Leon Charles said in televised comments.
"We blocked them en route as they left the scene of the crime," he said. "Since then, we have been battling with them."
"They will be killed or apprehended."
Mystery surrounds the motive behind Wednesday’s predawn raid on Mr Moïse’s residence that saw him shot dead and which left Haiti’s First Lady, Martine Moïse, fighting for life. She has been flown to Miami for treatment.
Officials have given few details of the suspects, but said the attack was carried out by “a highly trained and heavily armed group” whose members spoke Spanish or English.
However Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, told Reuters the gunmen were masquerading as US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents as they entered the president’s guarded residence under cover of nightfall - a move that would likely have helped them gain entry.
The assassination throws an already chaotic nation into further turmoil. Inflation and gang violence are spiraling upwards as food and fuel becomes scarcer, while 60 per cent of Haitian workers earn less than two dollars a day.
Mr Moïse had faced large protests in recent months that turned violent as opposition leaders and their supporters rejected his plans to hold a constitutional referendum with proposals that would strengthen the presidency.
Prime Minister Claude Joseph has assumed leadership of Haiti with help of police and the military and decreed a two-week state of siege.
Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia in the US, said the situation was “really explosive”, adding that foreign intervention with a UN-type military presence is a possibility.
“Whether Claude Joseph manages to stay in power is a huge question. It will be very difficult to do so if he doesn’t create a government of national unity,” he said.
The increasingly dire situation comes as Haiti is still trying to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, which claimed an estimated 250,000 lives, and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, following a history of dictatorship and political upheaval.
