Haiti’s Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, has resigned, according to Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Guyana’s president and the current chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
The 74-year-old Henry tendered his resignation after CARICOM leaders held an emergency summit on the situation in Haiti, where gang-led violence amid repeatedly postponed elections has caused chaos.
Henry, viewed as corrupt by many in Haiti, was not at the summit, which took place behind closed doors. Reporters said a spokesman for Henry’s office did not respond to calls seeking comment.
The alliance of gangs, led by Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, had warned of civil war if Henry, who became prime minister after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, did not step down.
Cherizier’s gangs went on the rampage when Henry was out of the country last week, seeking to rally support for a Kenya-led foreign police intervention that his government had argued was necessary to restore order so elections could be held.
The prime minister was supposed to step down in February and has been effectively locked out of the country since the unrest spiralled, landing in Puerto Rico last week after being denied entry into the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
CARICOM’s Ali said the emergency talks, which took place in Jamaica, were seeking to bring “stability and normalcy” to Haiti, the poorest country in the region.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also at the summit and promised an additional $100 million for a United Nations-backed force to stabilize the country, as well as $30 million in humanitarian assistance.
Blinken said the meeting was “critical” for Haiti and the region.
The US backed “a proposal developed in partnership with CARICOM and Haitian stakeholders to expedite a political transition through the creation of a broad-based, independent presidential college,” the US State Department said in a statement.
The body would be tasked with meeting the “immediate needs” of Haitian people, enabling the security mission’s deployment and creating security conditions necessary for free elections, Blinken said.
A US official in Puerto Rico said Henry was free to remain in US territory or to travel elsewhere and that the prime minister had confirmed his resignation in a call with Blinken.