BREAKING: Haitian President Viciously Assassinated In His Own Home

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in an invasion that occurred in his private residence overnight, according to Haitian government officials.

First Lady Martine Moïse was shot during the attack and in critical condition at a nearby hospital. Haitian interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph called the attack on Moïse a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act” in a statement, according to Fox News.

Joseph is in place to take over as interim president while the country of Haiti rebounds from the assassination. The group that targeted Moïse for the assassination has yet to be identified and still at large.

“The country’s security situation is under the control of the National Police of Haiti and the Armed Forces of Haiti,” Joseph’s statement to the public said, according to CNBC. “Democracy and the republic will win.”

Haiti has been increasingly unstable under economic and societal pressures.

Opposition leaders in Haiti have demanded that Moïse step down amid claims that he has overstayed his legal term in office. As CNBC reported:

Haiti’s economic, political and social woes have deepened recently, with gang violence spiking heavily in Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer at times in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day. These troubles come as Haiti still tries to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew that struck in 2016.

Opposition leaders accused Moïse, who was 53, of seeking to increase his power, including by approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.

In recent months, opposition leaders demanded he step down, arguing that his term legally ended in February 2021. Moïse and supporters maintained that his term began when he took office in early 2017, following a chaotic election that forced the appointment of a provisional president to serve during a year-long gap.