In the early hours of July 7, 2021, a group of armed assailants stormed the private residence of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in the upscale Pelerin neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, shooting him multiple times and killing him. His wife, Martine Moïse, was wounded in the attack and airlifted to a Miami hospital for treatment. The assassination of a sitting Haitian president — the first since 1915 — sent shockwaves through Haiti and the international community.
The attackers, who included former Colombian military officers and Haitian Americans, identified themselves during the operation as members of a US drug enforcement agency, a false claim designed to gain entry. The operation was carried out with a level of organization and tactical sophistication that pointed to significant planning and resources. Three attackers were killed by security forces in the immediate aftermath; dozens more were eventually arrested.
Haiti woke to the news of Moïse’s assassination in a state of shock and disbelief. Whatever Haitians had thought of his presidency — and opinions ranged widely — the violent death of the head of state was a traumatic event that underscored the depth of the country’s governance crisis. The assassination removed the country’s only nationally elected official and created an immediate question of succession that the constitution, in the absence of a vice president, senate president, or parliament, could not clearly answer.
The international community condemned the assassination in the strongest terms and called for calm. The United States, France, Canada, and Latin American governments expressed solidarity with the Haitian people. But solidarity could not change the fundamental reality: Haiti had just lost its president to assassination and had no clear constitutional mechanism for determining who should govern next.