Haiti welcomes new governing council as gang-ravaged country seeks peace

Michel Patrick Boisvert, who was named interim prime minister by the cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Ariel Henry, toasts during the swearing-in ceremony of the transitional council tasked with selecting Haiti’s new prime minister and cabinet (Ramon Espinosa/AP)

Haiti has opened a new political chapter with the installation of a transitional council tasked to pick a new prime minister and prepare for eventual presidential elections, in hopes of quelling spiralling gang violence that has killed thousands in the Caribbean country.

Ariel Henry, the prime minister who had been locked out of the country for the past couple of months due to the violence, cleared the way for the transition by presenting his resignation in a letter signed in Los Angeles.