Haiti’s interim PM stable after hospitalization for ‘slight illness’

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haiti’s new interim prime minister, Garry Conille, is in stable condition after being hospitalized for an unspecified illness on Saturday afternoon, his office said.

Conille, 58, who took office just over a week ago, was rushed to hospital after suffering breathing problems, local media reported earlier. His office did not provide details on the cause of his hospitalization.

“Following a week of intense activities, the Prime Minister … had a slight illness on the afternoon of Saturday June 8, 2024 and went to the hospital for treatment,” his office said in a statement.

“His situation is stable for the moment,” it added.

Reuters images showed several ambulances and police officers outside a hospital in a suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince where Conille was reportedly undergoing treatment.

Conille had briefly led the country over a decade ago, and was most recently a former regional director at U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

He was named interim prime minister on May 29 by a transition council with the mandate to restore stability and take back control from violent gangs.

The transition council aims to hold elections before Feb. 7, 2026, as laid out in Haiti’s constitution, after a series of crises in the country’s leadership.

President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021, leaving Haiti to this day without a president, while Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned in March this year after he left Haiti to seek support for the Kenyan security mission and was unable to re-enter the country.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Steven Aristil in Port-au-Prince; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jacqueline Wong)