HAITI’S unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced today that he would resign from his post once a transitional presidential council is created.
Mr Henry made the announcement hours after officials, including Caribbean leaders and the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met in Jamaica to urgently discuss a solution to halt Haiti’s spiralling crisis and agreed to a joint proposal to impose a transitional council on Haiti.
“The government that I’m running cannot remain insensitive in this situation. There is no sacrifice that is too big for our country,” Mr Henry said in a videotaped statement.
“The government I’m running will remove itself immediately after the installation of the council.”
Mr Henry has been unable to enter Haiti because the violence closed its main international airports.
He had arrived in Puerto Rico a week ago after being barred from landing in the Dominican Republic where officials said that he lacked a required flight plan. Dominican officials also closed the airspace to flights to and from Haiti.
It wasn’t immediately clear who would be responsible for appointing a new leader and who the likely candidates were.
But while the US and its allies decide on the future of Haiti, heavily armed gangs have burned police stations, attacked the main airport and raided two of the country’s biggest prisons, releasing some 4,000 inmates.
Scores of people have been killed and more than 15,000 are homeless after fleeing neighbourhoods raided by gangs. Food and water are dwindling as stands and stores selling to impoverished Haitians run out of goods.
The main port in Port-au-Prince remains closed, stranding dozens of containers with critical supplies.
The urgent meeting in Jamaica was organised by Caricom, a regional trade bloc.
Guyana President Irfaan Ali told the Caricom meeting that the transitional council would have seven voting members and two non-voting ones made up of existing political parties and members of the private sector.
Mr Henry was appointed as prime minister after the July 7 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moise, having never even been a member of the country’s parliament.
Haiti is currently without a single elected official after the term of the parliament ran out in January 2023.
Earlier on Monday, Mr Blinken announced an additional $100 million (£79m) to finance the deployment of a multinational force to Haiti to be led by Kenya.
Kenyan President William Ruto insists that the deployment will go ahead even though courts in his country have ruled against it.
