Ariel Henry, Haiti’s interim prime minister since 2021, has resigned. Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced this on Monday during a summit in Jamaica. The summit brought together Caribbean countries and regional players such as the United States, Brazil and Canada to discuss the escalation of violence in Haiti.
Henry was under growing pressure to end his term after he broke his previous promise to step down in February and announced he would not hold elections until 2025. The United States previously called on him to appoint an interim government that could count on support from Haitians and lead the country until elections were held. In his own country, powerful gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier called on him to resign.
According to Cherizier, a civil war would follow if Henry did not resign. After the gang leader made these threats in late February, a wave of violence followed, with attacks on police stations, prisons, the international airport, the presidential palace and several ministries. Henry himself was in Kenya at the time, where he concluded an agreement for an international peacekeeping force to help restore order in Haiti.
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Absent for a long time
Due to the flare-up of gang violence, Henry was unable to return to Haiti and was forced to move to Puerto Rico. There he has been for the past few days, without responding to the violence in his country. He also did not attend the summit in Jamaica, convened by Caribbean countries merged into the CARICOM bloc.
According to Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, a “presidential transition council” has been set up and an interim prime minister is being appointed. It is not known who this interim prime minister is. At the summit in Jamaica it was also announced that the US will provide an additional $100 million to the peace mission, to be led by Kenya. Tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid have also been pledged.
Gang violence in Haiti has caused at least 15,000 people to leave their homes in the capital Port-au-Prince in recent weeks. There are shortages of medical staff and medicines in hospitals, as well as shortages of food and fuel. Due to the violence, mortuaries no longer collect bodies: The Washington Post wrote on Saturday that Haitians are fleeing their homes because of the smell of corpses on the streets.