The assassination has rocked the nation, stoking fear and confusion about what is to come.
During a nighttime attack on July 7, a group of assassins fatally shot President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti and wounded his wife, Martine Moïse, in their private residence on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The assassination rocked the nation, stoking fear and confusion among residents and the Haitian diaspora about what is to come. Some details of the attack are coming into focus, but there are many that we don’t know. The assassins charged into Mr. Moïse’s residence sometime after 1 a.m. in what officials described as a well-planned operation that included “foreigners” who spoke Spanish. Mr. Moïse had counted on a high level of protection, usually traveling with more than a dozen armored cars and police guards. There are often 100 officers from the presidential guard around the president’s home, former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said. Yet there had been no specific warning of Wednesday’s attack, said Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond. Carl Henry Destin, a Haitian justice of the peace, said the president’s home had been peppered with holes and littered with bullet casings, and he had found the body of the president lying on the floor at the foot of his bed, “bathed in blood.” “There were 12 holes visible in the body of the president that I could see,” he told The New York Times. “He was riddled with bullets.” The president’s house had also been ransacked, said Mr. Destin. “Drawers were pulled out, papers were all over the ground, bags were open,” he said. Two servants had been tied up, he said. Ms. Moïse was injured in the attack and was flown to the Ryder Trauma Center in Miami. She was in stable condition, according to the ambassador, Mr. Edmond.
