Haiti first lady to be evacuated to Miami after surviving attack, reports say

Caribbean island’s capital of Port-au-Prince is about about 675 miles south of Florida

Haiti First Lady, left, evacuates to Miami (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Haiti’s first lady Martine Moïse will be evacuated to Miami after surviving the attack that killed her husband, president Jovenel Moïse.

Ms Moïse survived the assassination but Haiti’s ambassador to the United States said she was being moved to Florida for treatment of her injuries, according to Reuters.

“She’s stable but in critical condition,” Ambassador Bocchit Edmond told reporters. “Efforts are being done now to take her to Miami to be treated.”

While the full extent of Ms Moïse’s injuries was not publicly released, she was being treated at a local hospital before her planned transfer to Miami.

She was with her husband when the assassins broke into the couple’s private home in the early hours of Wednesday morning, according to the country’s interim prime minister Claude Joseph.

“The First Lady was wounded by a bullet and the necessary measures are being taken,” Mr Joseph said in a statement.

He told The New York Times that he was now running the country following the attack, which he said in his earlier statement was carried out by a group of unidentified individuals, “some of them speaking Spanish”.

While Mr Joseph said some of the attackers spoke Spanish, the country’s envoy to the US said the assassination was carried out by “by well-trained professionals, killers, commandos” who claimed they were Americans.

Mr Edmond said at a press conference that the gunmen identified themselves as agents of the US Drug Enforcement agency but that the professional killers were “fake DEA”, based on his impression from security camera footage.

The attack occurred about 1 am local time in the Caribbean island’s capital of Port-au-Prince, about 675 miles south of Miami.

Authorities closed the international airport and declared a “state of siege” as businesses in the area were ransacked following the assassination of the country’s leader.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press