Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s ambassador to the US, in an interview with Reuters described the assassins as “well-trained professional commandos” who were feared to have already fled the country.

Edmond also called the assassins “foreign mercenaries” who tried to pass themselves off as agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Following the assissinatoin of Moïse, interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph closed Haiti’s borders and enacted martial law in the already-unstable country that is plagued by gang violence, surging inflation and political protests.