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Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned on Thursday after ruling the Caribbean country for less than three years, as an interim council takes over amid a gang-fueled security crisis.
“I thank everyone who had the courage to face such challenges with me,” Henry wrote in his resignation letter, which was dated Wednesday but made public Thursday morning.
“I understand the losses and suffering that our compatriots have suffered during this time,” he added in the letter addressed to his cabinet.
Henry’s Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert will serve as interim prime minister as the Transitional Council, sworn in on Thursday morning at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, begins work.
The council, backed by the United States and Caribbean countries, is expected to appoint a prime minister and call Haiti’s first elections since 2016. The panel consists of nine members from various political parties and civil society groups; his mandate expires in February 2026.
Henry, a 74-year-old former neurosurgeon, took office in July 2021 after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in still-mysterious circumstances. Since then, the mandates of all of the country’s elected officials have expired and violent gangs have continued to develop: They now control more than 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
When Henry traveled to Kenya in late February to secure the East African country’s leadership of a United Nations-backed security mission in Haiti, a coalition of gangs launched a series of attacks and prevented the embattled prime minister’s return. Henry has since remained abroad and signed his letter of resignation in Los Angeles.
The members of the Presidential Council have “a long and difficult road ahead of them to form a new functioning government,” said Diego Da Rin, who researches Haiti for the International Crisis Group.
“Several members of the council belong to factions that are already eyeing the next elections and this could increase already existing tensions within this newly installed body.”
Meanwhile, human rights groups have warned that the humanitarian situation on the ground is worsening in what is already America’s poorest country.
Hospitals and schools were forced to close, while the airport and seaport were closed by gangs. According to the United Nations, more than 2,500 people have been killed, injured or kidnapped this year. In the capital alone, over 90,000 people have fled their homes as officials have warned of the risk of famine.
“The situation in Haiti is catastrophic and is getting worse by the day,” Catherine Russell, head of the UN children’s agency Unicef, told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday.
“In many areas, vital services have collapsed while people are losing access to food and clean drinking water, and in some communities life is now more dangerous than ever before.”