Martine Moise’s comments came three days after she was airlifted to a Miami hospital for treatment of grave wounds suffered early Wednesday when gunmen stormed the family home in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
“I am alive, thanks to God,” Martine Moise said in an audio message in Creole that was posted on her official Twitter account, and verified as authentic to AFP by Haiti’s minister of culture and communications, Pradel Henriquez.
“In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my home and riddled my husband with bullets … without even giving him a chance to say a word,” she said.
“I am crying, it is true, but we cannot let the country lose its way,” she said. “We cannot let his blood… have been spilled in vain.”
Martine Moise pointed at a variety of possible reasons: saying the killers could have been sent by people who might have been displeased with her husband’s plans to provide “roads, water and electricity, a (constitutional) referendum and elections set for the end of the year.”
She suggested that perhaps those behind the killing “do not want to see a transition in the country.”
Amid deep uncertainty over its political future, the international community has called on the impoverished Caribbean country to go ahead with presidential and legislative elections slated for later this year.
As for a transition of power, interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph says he is still in charge.
But a group of senators, with the backing of several opposition groups, have endorsed a plan to install Senate leader Joseph Lambert as the provisional president, with Ariel Henry — who had been appointed by Moise earlier this week — as the new prime minister.
It is not clear how Lambert could move ahead with his plan.
And for now, Joseph seems to have the police and other security forces on his side.