Haiti PM flees under gunfire as violence continues to grip nation

Ariel Henry was marking Haitian independence day on Saturday when gunfire erupted in northern city of Gonaives.

Gunfire has broken out in the northern Haitian city of Gonaives, forcing the country’s prime minister to cancel a speech to mark the Caribbean nation’s independence day.

Clashes between police and armed groups erupted on Saturday during official celebrations in the city of Gonaives, some 150km (90 miles) in the north of the capital Port-au-Prince, where Haiti’s declaration of independence was signed over 200 years ago.

Haiti, after Jovenel Moise’s assassination

Killers left me for dead: Slain Haiti leader’s wife Martine Moise

Haiti: Many questions, few answers one month after Moise killing

Haiti chooses judge to probe President Jovenel Moise’s killing

Local media reported that one person died and two were injured in the gunfire that forced Henry and others to duck and seek shelter as they walked out of a cathedral, where Henry was attending a mass.

“I knew I was taking a risk,” Henry told the AFP news agency in a telephone interview on Monday.

“We cannot let bandits from any background, driven by the lowest financial interests, blackmail the state,” said Henry, who has been de-facto running the country since the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

In 2020, Moise skipped the trip to Gonaives amid threats of violent protests – and local newspaper Le Nouvelliste said Henry’s attendance at the mass was “an act that no political authority was able to make in the last four years”.

In a statement in Haitian Creole shared on Sunday on Twitter, Henry had said: “Today, our enemies, the enemies of the Haitian people, are the terrorists who do not hesitate to use violence to kill people with all their might, or to kidnap, take away their freedom, to rape them. And do everything for money.”