July 8, 2021: -Haiti President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in an attack on his private residence, the country’s interim PM said in a statement Wednesday, calling it a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.”

First Lady Martine Moïse was hospitalized after the overnight attack, interim Premier Claude Joseph said. The nation of over 11 million people had grown unstable and disgruntled under Moïse.

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

On Wednesday, the streets were empty, mainly in the capital of Port-au-Prince of the Caribbean nation, but some people ransacked businesses in one area.

Joseph said police deployed to the National Palace and the upscale community of Pétionville and will be sent to the different areas.

Joseph condemned the assassination as a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.” He said a few of the attackers spoke in Spanish but did not give any explanation.

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

Moïse, aged 53, had been ruling by decree for over two years after the country could not hold the elections, which led to Parliament being dissolved. Opposition leaders are accusing him of seeking to increase his power, which includes approving a decree that limits the capabilities of a court auditing government contracts and another that creates an intelligence agency that answers to the president alone.

Recently, opposition leaders demanded that he step down, argued that his term legally ended in February 2021. Moïse and supporters maintained that his time 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.