Haiti President Jovenel Moïse has tapped Ariel Henry, a former minister of interior and respected neurosurgeon who once charted the country’s public health response to the deadly cholera epidemic, as his latest prime minister.
But the de-facto way in which Henry, 71, got the job —there has been no parliament since January 2020, and Moïse, ruling by decree, did not seek a political agreement for making the appointment—may not help tamp down Haiti’s increasingly volatile political and constitutional crisis. Nor may his selection -- he is Moïse’s seventh prime ministger -- and that of a new cabinet be enough to address the mounting humanitarian crisis, prompted by a surging wave of violence by armed gangs.
Already behind an alarming spike in kidnappings, the gangs’ fights over territory and money have forced the displacement of thousands of Haitians from poor, working-class Port-au-Prince neighborhoods since last month. A recent report shared with a disarmament group working with the United Nations said in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area alone there are 162 criminal gangs with 3,000 members.
Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.
