Landslides and flooding caused by heavy rains killed at least 19 people in Brazil’s most populous state Sunday while high waters forced some 500,000 families from their homes over the weekend, authorities said. Three people from the same family died when a landslide destroyed their house in the city of Embu das Artes, according to the municipal government, while four other people were rescued by firemen. Four children died in Francisco Morato, Sao Paulo state Gov. João Doria said, and the state government said four other people died in Franco da Rocha. Deaths also were reported in Ribeirão Preto and Jaú. Read: Wall of rock falls on boaters on Brazilian lake, killing 6 Three of the deaths involved people who were swept away by flood waters, the state fire department said. Doria used a helicopter to survey damaged areas on Sunday and announced the equivalent of $2.8 million in financial aid to affected cities. Overflowing rivers forced 500,000 families to leave their homes, the state government said. Several roads and highways were blocked. Because of disruptions caused by the rain, the city of Sao Paulo canceled scheduled vaccinations against the coronavirus. Southeastern Brazil has been punished with heavy rains since the start of the year, with 19 deaths recorded in Minas Gerais state earlier this month.

A group of 17 U.S. missionaries including children was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident. The missionaries were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a message from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries. “This is a special prayer alert,” the one-minute message said. “Pray that the gang members would come to repentance.” Read:Options shrink for Haitian migrants straddling Texas border The message says the mission's field director is working with the U.S. Embassy, and that the field director's family and one other unidentified man who stayed at the ministry's base while everyone else visiting the orphanage, was abducted. No other details were immediately available. A U.S. government spokesperson said they were aware of the reports on the kidnapping. “The welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the Department of State,” the spokesperson said, declining further comment. Haiti is once again struggling with a spike in gang-related kidnappings that had diminished after President Jovenel Moïse was fatally shot at his private residence on July 7, and following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August and killed more than 2,200 people. Gangs have demanded ransoms ranging from a couple hundred dollars to more than $1 million, according to authorities. Last month, a deacon was killed in front of a church in the capital of Port-au-Prince and his wife kidnapped, one of dozens of people who have been abducted in recent months. At least 328 kidnapping victims were reported to Haiti’s National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared with a total of 234 for all of 2020, according to a report issued last month by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti known as BINUH. Gangs have been accused of kidnapping schoolchildren, doctors, police officers, busloads of passengers and others as they grow more powerful. In April, one gang kidnapped five priests and two nuns, a move that prompted a protest similar to the one organized for this Monday to decry the lack of security in the impoverished country. Read: US launches mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas “Political turmoil, the surge in gang violence, deteriorating socioeconomic conditions – including food insecurity and malnutrition – all contribute to the worsening of the humanitarian situation,” BINUH said in its report. “An overstretched and under-resourced police force alone cannot address the security ills of Haiti.” On Friday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.N. political mission in Haiti. The kidnapping of the missionaries comes just days after high-level U.S. officials visited Haiti and promised more resources for Haiti's National Police, including another $15 million to help reduce gang violence, which this year has displaced thousands of Haitians who now live in temporary shelters in increasingly unhygienic conditions. Among those who met with Haiti's police chief was Uzra Zeya, U.S. under secretary of state for civilian security, democracy, and human rights. “Dismantling violent gangs is vital to Haitian stability and citizen security,” she recently tweeted.

Three hours after being freed from a giant migrant camp under an international bridge, Mackenson Veillard stood outside a gas station and took stock of his sudden good fortune as he and his pregnant wife waited for a Greyhound bus to take them to a cousin in San Antonio. The couple camped with thousands for a week under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas, sleeping on concrete and getting by on bread and bottled water. “I felt so stressed,” Veillard, 25, said this week. “But now, I feel better. It’s like I’m starting a new life.” Many Haitian migrants in Del Rio are being released in the United States, according to two U.S. officials, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion to Haiti. Haitians have been freed on a “very, very large scale” in recent days, one official said Tuesday. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, put the figure in the thousands. Many have been released with notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days, an outcome that requires less processing time from Border Patrol agents than ordering an appearance in immigration court and points to the speed at which authorities are moving. Read: Options shrink for Haitian migrants straddling Texas border The releases come despite a massive effort to expel Haitians on flights under pandemic-related authority that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum. A third U.S. official not authorized to discuss operations said there were seven daily flights to Haiti planned starting Wednesday. Ten flights arrived in Haiti from Sunday to Tuesday in planes designed for 135 passengers, according to Haitian officials, who didn’t provide a complete count but said six of those flights carried 713 migrants combined. The camp held more than 14,000 people over the weekend, according to some estimates. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, during a visit Tuesday to Del Rio, said the county’s top official told him the most recent tally was about 8,600 migrants. U.S. authorities have declined to say how many have been released in the U.S. in recent days. The Homeland Security Department has been busing Haitians from Del Rio, a town of 35,000 people, to El Paso, Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border, and this week added flights to Tucson, Arizona, the official said. They are processed by the Border Patrol at those locations. Criteria for deciding who is flown to Haiti and who is released in the U.S. are a mystery, but two officials said single adults were a priority. If previous handling of asylum-seekers is any guide, the administration is more likely to release those deemed vulnerable, including pregnant women, families with young children and those with medical issues. The Biden administration exempts unaccompanied children from expulsion flights on humanitarian grounds. The system is a “black box,” said Wade McMullen, an attorney with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, who was in Del Rio. “Right now, we have no official access to understand what processes are underway, what protections are being provided for the migrants.” On Wednesday, more than 300 migrants had been dropped off in Border Patrol vans by early afternoon at a welcome center staffed by the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition. They waited for buses to Houston, a springboard to final destinations in the U.S. Many were required to wear ankle monitors, used to ensure they obey instructions to report to immigration authorities. “Hello. How are you?” volunteer Lupita De La Paz greeted them in Spanish. “We will help you. You have arrived in Del Rio, Texas. It’s a small town. There are not many options. We will help you get to another place.” Read: US launches mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas Rabbiatu Yunusah, 34, waited with her 3-year-old daughter Laila, was headed to settle with an uncle in Huntsville, Alabama. She felt “very happy to be in this country, to be free.” Jimy Fenelon, 25, and his partner, Elyrose Prophete, who is eight months pregnant, left the camp Tuesday and were headed to Florida to stay with an uncle. “Everyone has their luck. Some didn’t have luck to get here.” Fenelon said. Accounts of wide-scale releases — some observed in Del Rio by Associated Press journalists -- are at odds with statements Monday by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who traveled to Del Rio to promise swift action. “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” he said at a news conference. Homeland Security, asked to comment on releases in the United States, said Wednesday that migrants who are not immediately expelled to Haiti may be detained or released with a notice to appear in immigration court or report to an immigration office, depending on available custody space. “The Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” the department said in a statement. “Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion.” Meanwhile, Mexico has begun busing and flying Haitian migrants away from the U.S. border, signaling a new level of support for the United States as the camp presented President Joe Biden with a humanitarian and increasingly political challenge. The White House is facing sharp bipartisan condemnation. Republicans say Biden administration policies led Haitians to believe they would get asylum. Democrats are expressing outrage after images went viral this week of Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics against the migrants. Read: Haitians on Texas border undeterred by US plan to expel them Immigrants have described a screening process at the camp where people were given colored tickets for four categories: single men; single women; pregnant women; and families with young children, McMullen said. The vast majority of immigrants he and other advocates have interviewed and who have been released into the U.S. have been families with young children and pregnant women. Wilgens Jean and his wife, Junia Michel, waited in Del Rio this week for relatives to send the $439 in bus fare to get to Springfield, Ohio, where Jean’s brother lives. Michel, who is pregnant, huddled under the little shade the parking lot had to offer from the brutal heat. Her only request was for sunscreen that she softly rubbed on her pregnant belly. On the concrete in front of them lay two backpacks and a black garbage bag which held everything the couple owns. The pair left in Haiti in April and were in the Del Rio camp for five days. Jean said because his wife is expecting, they were released from the camp on Monday. “I entered by crossing the river,” Jean said. “Immigration gave me a ticket.” After an initial stay with family in San Antonio, Veillard eventually hopes to get to New York City to live with his sister. He will take any job he can find to support his growing family. Veillard and his wife left Haiti four years ago and had been living in Brazil until they began their journey to the United States in June, much of it on foot. “I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow but now I feel lucky,” he said.

The options remaining for thousands of Haitian migrants straddling the Mexico-Texas border are narrowing as the United States government ramps up to an expected six expulsion flights to Haiti Tuesday and Mexico began busing some away from the border. More than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants had been removed from an encampment at Del Rio, Texas, U.S. officials said Monday as they defended a strong response that included immediately expelling migrants to their impoverished Caribbean country and faced criticism for using horse patrols to stop them from entering the town. That was enough for some Haitian migrants to return to Mexico, while others struggled to decide on which side of the border to take their chances. Marie Pierre, 43, stood on the Mexican side of the river as night fell with hundreds of other migrants unsure what to do. She said Border Patrol agents had separated her from her 19-year-old son in Texas and she didn’t know if he had been deported or not. She waited for a chance to charge her phone, hoping to get news from her sister and cousin in Florida.  “They told me he was an adult and couldn’t be with us,” she said of the moment they were separated. Read:US launches mass expulsion of Haitian migrants from Texas Earlier Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas conceded it was a “challenging and heartbreaking situation,” but he issued a stark warning: “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned. Your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.” Officials from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission walked among the migrants signing up those interested in applying for asylum in Mexico. So far this year, more than 19,000 Haitians have opted to do so, including some now at the border. At the same time, Mexican authorities were detaining some migrants. The first busloads pulled out Sunday and more empty buses arrived Monday. Some humanitarian workers said Monday they had seen Mexican National Guard troops help immigration agents detain a group of 15 to 20 migrants in Acuña. Mexico’s immigration agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But a federal official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the plan was to take the migrants to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, and Tapachula, in the south, with flights to Haiti from those cities to begin in coming days. Read: Haitians on Texas border undeterred by US plan to expel them Authorities stopped some bus lines from operating in the state of Coahuila in an effort to force them not to carry migrants, said Luis Ángel Urraza, president of the local chamber of commerce. He said the U.S. government’s decision to close the bridge connecting Ciudad Acuna and Del Rio was wearing on the city’s merchants who were counting the days until the migrant population dropped enough to reopen it. Mayorkas and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said they would look into agents on horseback using what appeared to be whips and their horses to push back migrants at the river between Ciudad Acuña and Del Rio, a city of about 35,000 people roughly 145 miles (230 kilometers) west of San Antonio where thousands of migrants remain camped around a bridge. Later Monday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement calling the footage “extremely troubling” and promising a full investigation that would “define the appropriate disciplinary actions to be taken.” Mayorkas said 600 Homeland Security employees, including from the Coast Guard, have been brought to Del Rio. He said he has asked the Defense Department for help in what may be one of the swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants and refugees from the United States in decades. He also said the U.S. would increase the pace and capacity of flights to Haiti and other countries in the hemisphere. The number of migrants at the bridge peaked at 14,872 on Saturday, said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union that represents agents. The rapid expulsions were made possible by a pandemic-related authority adopted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that allows for migrants to be immediately removed from the country without an opportunity to seek asylum. President Joe Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the order but let the rest stand. Any Haitians not expelled are subject to immigration laws, which include rights to seek asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection. Families are quickly released in the U.S. because the government cannot generally hold children. Read: Nowhere to go for Haiti quake victims upon hospital release Haitians have been migrating to the U.S. in large numbers from South America for several years, many having left their Caribbean nation after a devastating 2010 earthquake. After jobs dried up from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many made the dangerous trek by foot, bus and car to the U.S. border, including through the infamous Darien Gap, a Panamanian jungle. Some of the migrants at the Del Rio camp said the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti and the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse make them afraid to return to a country that seems more unstable than when they left. “It’s not right,” said Haitian migrant Jean Philipe Samus. “The Americans are grabbing Haitians and deporting everyone to Haiti. Haiti has no president, no jobs, there is nothing. In the earthquake a lot of people died. It’s not right over there, I’m going back to Mexico.” But Mayorkas defended his recent decision to grant Haitians temporary legal status due to political and civil strife in their homeland if they were in the United States on July 29, but not to those being sent back now. “We made an assessment based on the country conditions... that Haiti could in fact receive individuals safely,” he said.

Orderlies pushed Jertha Ylet’s bed from the center of the hospital ward to one side so Dr. Michelet Paurus could plug in his electric saw. She was silent as the doctor cut off her plaster cast in measured strokes. Today she would have to leave the hospital, the doctor said. Ylet had resisted until the cast came off. She’d been at Les Cayes’ General Hospital since being brought there Aug. 14, unconscious and with her leg crushed, after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake destroyed her house, killing her father and two other relatives and seriously injuring her brother. There is no home to return to. A surgeon inserted a metal rod in her lower left leg on Thursday. Ylet, 25, had not been out of bed, much less tried to walk, since she arrived. Her 5-year-old daughter, Younaika, who was not injured, shared her bed and spent her days playing with other children around the ward. Read:Haiti raises earthquake death toll, passes 2,200 More than a week after the earthquake on Haiti’s southwestern peninsula killed at least 2,207 people, injured 12,268 and destroyed nearly 53,000 houses, Ylet represents an emerging dilemma for the region’s limited health care services: how to turn over hospital beds when discharged patients have nowhere to go. “I said to the doctor, ‘I don’t have any place to go,’” Ylet said. “I told them everything. The doctor doesn’t understand.” In the first days after the quake, the hospital was overwhelmed with patients. The injured lay on patios and breezeways awaiting care. Now there are still people in those areas, but they are discharged patients or people who were never admitted at all, who have been drawn by the donations of food, water and clothing that arrive at the hospital daily. “We have a lot patients who have been discharged, but are still hanging out in the yard,” said hospital director Peterson Gede. “The fact they know they will receive food and water ... they don’t have any intention to leave.” On Monday, Gede issued an order for hospital staff to begin to “motivate” patients to leave, “to make them understand that we need beds for new patient admissions.” It proved easier said than done. Not having a home to return to was a significant obstacle for Ylet and many others. Ylet lost consciousness when a wall of her cinderblock house in Camp-Perrin fell on her as the quake struck. Her boyfriend, Junior Milord, had left 20 minutes earlier for work. He froze in the street until the shaking stopped, then ran back to Ylet’s house. He found her buried near the front of the building, which unlike the back, had not completely collapsed. “I thought she was dead when I first started removing the blocks,” Milord said. He pulled her out and flagged down a passing car, which took her to the hospital in Les Cayes. “When I woke up I was in the hospital,” she said. Milord then returned to help dig out the bodies of Ylet’s father, cousin and brother-in-law. Their bodies are still at a funeral home, because the family doesn’t have the money to bury them. Milord lost his own home, plus two uncles, an aunt and a brother in the quake. Read: In Haiti, close relation between the living and the dead Milord said some of Ylet’s surviving relatives are camping in her yard. If Ylet and her daughter have to leave, he said, they will end up there too. Across the ward, nurse Gabrielle Lagrenade understands that reality as well as anyone. Lagrenade and her 21-year-old daughter, Bethsabelle, have been sleeping outside since the quake hit. They struggle to sleep on the gravel roadside with their heads less than 6 feet from the highway. All night long mopeds, SUVs and tractor trailers rain dust and pebbles on them. It’s the only level ground around the two-story building where they’d rented an apartment above a small clothing store. The land drops precipitously from the road to a stream running behind the building, which was constructed on reinforced concrete columns above a drainage gully that feeds into the stream. Two columns now display gaping spaces between the bottom of the building and the top of the supports. The landlord has wisely decided to tear it down. Despite her own precarious situation, Lagrenade, 52, continues to arrive daily for her shift at the hospital, carefully folding and stowing her bedding, discreetly slipping behind the row of roadside buildings to bathe and re-emerging in her spotless white nurse’s smock to hail a motorcycle taxi for the ride to work. Ylet is on her ward. About 22 beds spread across the room. Nurses and doctors wear masks, but patients do not, despite virtually no one in Haiti having been vaccinated for COVID-19. Nurses huddle around a wooden table at one end. Medical waste is tossed into a cardboard box in a corner. Lagrenade is not unsympathetic to Ylet’s plight and that of other newly homeless patients, but she is pragmatic. The beds are needed, she said. “After someone gets well they have to go,” Lagrenade said. This is what Paurus was trying to explain to Ylet. An orthopedist who came from Port-au-Prince to operate on her leg had cleared her to leave, the doctor said. “If we decide to keep patients whose homes were destroyed there won’t be room for (new) patients,” he said. “We have a lot of patients and emergencies who need a bed.” Read: Oxygen plant among earthquake-damaged buildings in Haiti Then Paurus got his saw. After her cast was off, Ylet said she would give up her bed, but camp outside on the hospital grounds, because they told her to come back Thursday for a follow-up appointment. But then some volunteers brought hot lunches. By the end of the day, Ylet was still in her bed. Milord said no one had come back to tell her to leave so there she was. “The doctor needs to understand that I don’t have a place to go and I am not leaving,” Ylet said. “I will stay in the hospital’s yard and sleep there until I am able to figure it out.”

As if Haiti’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake, a tropical storm and the coronavirus pandemic weren’t enough, the temblor damaged the only medical oxygen plant in the southern part of the country. The building that housed the oxygen concentrator machines that the region depended on partially collapsed, and the machines were upended. The Etheuss company is run by the a family famous for their vetiver perfume oils plant in the city of Les Cayes, one of the areas hardest hit by Saturday’s earthquake. “We are trying to get the oxygen production started again. That is our responsibility, because many people depend on it,” said Kurtch Jeune, one of the brothers who run the plant, as he showed reporters through the damaged, rubble-strewn plants on Thursday. The quake left concrete pillars and roofs at the facility leaning, and cement block rubble battered the tanks, electrical system and the delicate web of copper tubing that fills vital oxygen plants. “The oxygen generators are upside down,” Jeune said. “We did get a promise of help from the public works department to get the rubble out with excavators.” Read: Tensions over aid grow in Haiti as quake’s deaths pass 2K Jeune said that, apart from two medical oxygen plants in the capital, Port-au-Prince, his factory was the only one serving local hospitals. As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on, Jeune says demand for oxygen has gone up 200% in the last month. “We have the capacity to supply 40 oxygen cylinders per day,” Jeune said. “We supply several hospitals.” The powerful earthquake that struck Haiti’s southwestern peninsula killed at least 2,189 and injured 12,268 people, according to official figures. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the small port city of Les Cayes. More than 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged. The earthquake was trailed by a tropical storm that brought heavy rain and strong winds at the beginning of the week. Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure still presented huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it. Read: What makes Haiti prone to devastating earthquakes Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, closed for two days beginning Thursday to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons. The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in the capital. Further, a group of 18 Colombian volunteer search-and-rescue workers had to be escorted out of the quake-hit city of Jeremie under police protection after a false rumor circulated that they had been involved in the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The workers took shelter Wednesday night at a civil defense office, and police escorted them to the airport on Thursday. Moise’s killing, still unsolved, is suspected of being carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries. Despite what happened to the Colombian rescue workers, Haiti is welcoming “everyone who is coming to bring assistance,” said Jerry Chandler, the head of the national Civil Protection Agency. Health care facilities in the Western Hemisphere poorest nation were already at a critical point before the earthquake because of the pandemic. The country of 11 million people has reported 20,556 cases and 576 deaths of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. Haiti received its first batch of U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low-income countries. The rest of Jeune’s factory, which produces an essential oil used in fine perfumes, was also badly damaged. Read: Rescuers racing in Haiti as storm threatens to follow quake The family’s business processes bales of beige, stringy roots culled from the vetiver plant to produce more than half the world’s vetiver oil. Vetiver oil is also used for cosmetics, soaps and aromatherapy. It generates an estimated $12 million in revenue a year and employs anywhere from 15,000 to 60,000 farmers. The damage to the factory threatens Haiti’s already perilous rural economy, plagued by drought, soil erosion and tropical storms. Haiti produces more than 70 tons of vetiver oil a year, surpassing Indonesia, China, India, Brazil and the neighboring Dominican Republic. It is one of the country’s top exports, with up to 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) harvested annually. But more than 60% of the crop still comes from individual producers, many of whom are struggling financially, according to Gabriel Gelin, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program in Haiti.

Hundreds of workers fled businesses in northern Haiti on Wednesday after demonstrations near the hometown of assassinated President Jovenel Moïse grew violent ahead of his funeral. Associated Press journalists observed the body of one man who witnesses said was shot in the community of Quartier-Morin, which is near Trou-du-Nord, where Moïse was born. Roadblocks were set up between the two communities, temporarily barring cars from entering or leaving as two plumes of thick, black smoke rose nearby. Read:Haiti's interim prime minister to step down Many workers walked hurriedly in a single file along the main road that connects Quartier-Morin with Cap-Haitien, the city where events to honor Moïse were scheduled to start Thursday ahead of Friday’s funeral. Fleeing people said they saw burning tires and men with weapons demanding justice for Moïse. One woman who was out of breath said the armed men told her, “Go! Go! Go!” as employees clad in uniforms of all colors obeyed and left the area. She declined to give her name, saying she feared for her life. Abnel Pierre, who works at the Caracol Industrial Park, said he was forced to walk 45 minutes home because the bus that transports employees was stuck behind blockades. He declined further comment as he walked swiftly toward his house as the sky began to darken. Read:Martine Moïse, wife of slain president, returns to Haiti These were the first violent demonstrations since Moïse was shot to death at his private home. They came a day after Ariel Henry was sworn in as the country’s new prime minister, pledging to form a provisional consensus government and to restore order and security. In the capital of Port-au-Prince, Martine Moïse, widow of the slain president, made her first public appearance since her surprise return to Haiti on Saturday, although she did not speak. She had been recuperating at a hospital in Miami after she was wounded in the July 7 attack at the couple’s private home. She wore a black dress and black face mask and her right arm was in a black sling as she met with officials near the National Pantheon Museum, where ceremonies are being held to commemorate her husband. She was accompanied by her three children. The capital remained peaceful in contrast with the community in northern Haiti. Read:Power vacuum rattles Haiti in wake of president’s killing Authorities have said at least 26 suspects have been detained as part of the investigation into the assassination, including 18 former Colombian soldiers and three Haitian police officers. At least seven high-ranking police officers have been placed in isolation, but not formally arrested, Police Chief Léon Charles has said. On Wednesday, Colombia’s government said it would have a consular mission in Haiti on July 25-27 to help the detained ex- soldiers and repatriate the bodies of the three others killed by Haitian authorities in the aftermath of the assassination.

Martine Moïse, the wife of Haiti’s assassinated president who was injured in the July 7 attack at their private home, returned to the Caribbean nation on Saturday following her release from a Miami hospital. Her arrival was unannounced and surprised many in the country of more than 11 million people still reeling from the killing of Jovenel Moïse in a raid authorities say involved Haitians, Haitian-Americans and former Colombian soldiers. Martine Moïse disembarked the flight at the Port-au-Prince airport wearing a black dress, a black bulletproof jacket, a black face mask, and her right arm in a black sling as she slowly walked down the steps of what appeared to be a private plan one by one. She was greeted by Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph and other officials. Read: Power vacuum rattles Haiti in wake of president’s killing Earlier this week, she tweeted from the Miami hospital that she could not believe her husband, Jovenel Moïse, was gone “without saying a last word,” she wrote. “This pain will never pass.” On Friday, government officials had announced that Jovenel Moïse’s funeral would be held on July 23 in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien and that his wife is expected to attend. She arrived hours after a key group of international diplomats on Saturday appeared to snub the man currently running Haiti by urging another politician, the designated prime minister, to form a government following Moïse’s killing. Joseph has been leading Haiti with the backing of police and the military despite the fact that Moïse had announced his replacement a day before the president was killed. Joseph and his allies argue that the designated successor, Ariel Henry, was never sworn in, though he pledged to work with him and with Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s inactive Senate. The statement was issued by the Core Group, which is composed of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the U.S., France, the European Union and representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The group called for the creation of “a consensual and inclusive government.” Read: Mystery grows with key suspect in Haiti president killing “To this end, it strongly encourages the designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him to form such a government,” the group said. U.S. officials could not be immediately reached for comment. A U.N. spokesman declined comment except to say that the U.N. is part of the group that issued the statement. Meanwhile, an OAS spokesman only said the following: “For the moment, there is nothing further to say other than what the statement says.” Henry and spokespeople for Joseph did not immediately return messages for comment. The group also asked that “all political, economic and civil society actors in the country fully support authorities in their efforts to restore security.” Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said the statement is very confusing especially after the U.N. representative had said that Joseph was in charge. “More confusion in a very confusing and bewildering situation,” he said. The question of who should take over has been complicated by the fact Haiti’s parliament has not been functioning because a lack of elections meant most members’ terms had expired. And the head of the Supreme Court recently died of Covid-19. Read: Florida suspect in Haiti president killing deepens mystery A day after the assassination, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price noted that Joseph was the incumbent in the position and was serving as acting prime minister before the assassination: “We continue to work with Claude Joseph as such,” he said. On July 11, a delegation of representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and National Security Council traveled to Haiti. They reviewed critical infrastructure, talked with Haitian National Police and met with Joseph, Henry and Lambert in a joint meeting.

Pressure is mounting on the man who claims to be Haiti’s leader in the aftermath of the president’s assassination, with at least two other officials claiming to be the legitimate head of government amid a race to fill the political power vacuum. Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who is ruling Haiti with the backing of lean police and military forces, has pledged to work with the opposition and allies of President Jovenel Moïse, who was killed Wednesday at his private residence. He faces two rivals: Ariel Henry, whom Moïse designated as prime minister a day before he was killed, and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, who was recently chosen by a group of well-known politicians to be provisional president. Meanwhile, a coalition of main opposition parties called the Democratic and Popular Sector presented its own proposal Tuesday for the creation of what it called the Independent Moral Authority. It would be made up of human rights activists, religious leaders, academics and others who would be charged with reviewing and merging all proposals. Read: Mystery grows with key suspect in Haiti president killing Also on Tuesday, members of Haiti’s civil society announced that they were working on a proposal for a smooth transition and declined to say whether it supports a specific person to lead Haiti. “We don’t want them to reduce us to who should do what,” said Magalie Georges, a teacher and union leader. Lambert was supposed to be sworn in Sunday as a symbolic act, but the event was canceled at the last minute because he said not all his supporters could be present. Joseph, Henry and Lambert met Sunday with a U.S. delegation that included representatives from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security who flew to Haiti to encourage dialogue “to reach a political accord that can enable the country to hold free and fair elections,” the White House’s National Security Council said. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance, but she did not provide details. Haiti’s request for U.S. military help remains “under review,” she said. Psaki suggested that political uncertainty on the ground was a complicating factor as the administration weighs how to help. “What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership,” Psaki said. Haiti is also seeking security assistance from the United Nations. The U.N. has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990, but the last U.N. military peacekeepers left the country in 2017. Few details of the meeting between the U.S. delegation and the three men have emerged, although Lambert said he was urged to work together with other actors whom he did not identify. Read: Florida suspect in Haiti president killing deepens mystery “I am not looking for personal glory. We have the country first in mind,” he told Radio Télévision Caraïbes. The deepening political instability comes as Haitian authorities continue to probe the assassination with help from Colombia’s government. Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing, and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Léon Charles, head of Haiti’s National Police, said five suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed. Police on Tuesday identified three of the five fugitives, describing them as armed and dangerous. One is former Sen. John Joël Joseph, a well-known Haitian politician who is an opponent to the Tet Kale party that Moise belonged to. Another is Rodolphe Jaar, who uses the alias “Whiskey” and was indicted in 2013 with two other men in federal court in South Florida on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela through Haiti to the U.S. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison, according to court records. At his 2015 sentencing hearing, Jaar’s attorney told the court that Jaar had been a confidential source for the U.S. government for several years before his indictment. He also agreed to cooperate with federal authorities. In June 2000, Jaar filed a civil suit against the U.S. government seeking the return of a “large amount” of cash taken from him along with his passport and tourist visa when he was stopped in a rental car by customs agents. He was not arrested at the time, but Jaar said he learned that he was under investigation for money laundering. Jaar described himself in court papers as the owner of a successful import business in Haiti. He said his family has operated the enterprise since 1944. The third man was identified as Joseph Felix Badio, who once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and joined the government’s anti-corruption unit in 2013. The agency issued a statement saying Badio was fired in May following “serious breaches” of unspecified ethical rules, adding that it filed a complaint against him. Read: Haitian arrested as alleged tie to assassination masterminds Haitian police also have arrested a man considered a key suspect: Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, a Haitian physician, church pastor and Florida businessman who once expressed a desire to lead his country in a YouTube video and has denounced the country’s leaders as corrupt. Charles said Sanon was working with those who plotted the assassination and that Moïse’s killers were protecting him. He said officers who raided Sanon’s house in Haiti found a hat with a DEA logo, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence. But a business associate and a pastor in Florida who knew Sanon told the AP that he was religious and that they do not believe he was involved in violence. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said he believes Sanon was duped and described him as “completely gullible.” Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice departments who wanted to install him as president. He said the plan was only for Moïse to be arrested, and Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moïse would be killed.

A physician. A church pastor. A failed Florida businessman who filed for bankruptcy. New details that have emerged about a man considered a key player in the killing of Haiti’s president deepened the mystery over the assassination that shocked this nation of more than 11 million people as it faces an uncertain future. Local authorities identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, a Haitian who once expressed a desire to lead his country in a YouTube video. However he is unknown in Haitian political circles, and associates suggested he was duped by those really behind the slaying of President Jovenel Moïse in an attack last week that critically wounded his wife, Martine. A Florida friend of Sanon told The Associated Press the suspect is an evangelical Christian pastor and also is a licensed physician in Haiti, but not in the U.S. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, said Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice departments who wanted to install him as president. Read:Florida suspect in Haiti president killing deepens mystery He said the plan was only for Moïse to be arrested, and Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moïse would be killed. “I guarantee you that,” the associate said. “This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government.” Echoing those sentiments was the Rev. Larry Caldwell, a Florida pastor, who said he worked with Sanon setting up churches and medical clinics in Haiti in 2000-2010. He doesn’t believe Sanon would have been involved in violence. “I know the character of the man,” Caldwell said. “You take a man like that and you’re then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? ... If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian.” Haiti’s National Police chief, Léon Charles, said Moïse’s killers were protecting Sanon, whom he accused of working with those who plotted the assassination. Charles said officers found a hat with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence, among other things, in Sanon’s house in Haiti. Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing, and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Charles said five suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told AP that one of the suspects in Moïse’s assassination was at times a confidential source to the agency, and that the suspect reached out to his contacts at the DEA after the killing and was urged to surrender. The official said the DEA and a U.S. State Department official provided information to Haiti’s government that led to the surrender and arrest of one suspect and one other individual, whom it didn’t identify. Meanwhile, Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said that a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for Colombian suspects. Most arrived in the Dominican Republic in June and moved into Haiti within weeks, Vargas said. He said Dimitri Hérard, head of general security at Haiti’s National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination, and Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. In Haiti, prosecutors are seeking to interrogate Hérard as part of the assassination investigation. Charles said that Sanon was in contact with CTU Security and that the company recruited the suspects in the killing. He said Sanon flew into Haiti in June on a private jet accompanied by several of the alleged gunmen. The suspects were told their job was to protect Sanon, but they were later ordered to arrest the president, Charles said. Charles said that after Moïse was killed, one suspect called Sanon, who got in touch with two people believed to be masterminds of the plot. He did not identify the masterminds or say if police know who they are. Read: Haitian arrested as alleged tie to assassination masterminds Sanon’s associate said he attended a recent meeting in Florida with Sanon and about a dozen other people, including Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, a Venezuelan émigré to Miami who runs CTU Security. He said a presentation was made for rebuilding Haiti, including its water system, converting trash into energy and fixing roads. He said Sanon asked why the security team accompanying him to Haiti were all Colombians. Sanon was told that Haitians couldn’t be trusted and that the system is corrupt, the associate said. He said Sanon called him from Haiti a few days before the assassination and said the Colombians had disappeared. “I’m all by myself. Who are these people? I don’t know what they are doing,” the associate quoted Sanon as saying. Sanon “is completely gullible,” the associate added. “He thinks God is going to save everything.” Sanon has lived in Kansas City, Missouri and in Florida, where he filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and identified himself as a medical doctor in a YouTube video titled “Leadership for Haiti” in which he denounced the country’s leadership as corrupt and accused them of stripping the country’s resources. However, records show Sanon has never been licensed to practice medicine or any other occupation covered by Florida’s Department of Health. Sanon said in court papers filed in his 2013 bankruptcy case that he was a physician and a pastor at the Tabarre Evangelical Tabernacle in Haiti. He said he had stakes in enterprises including the Organization of Rome Haiti, which he identified as a non-governmental group, a radio station in Haiti and medical facilities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. At the time of his bankruptcy, he and his wife reported income of $5,000 per month, and a home in Brandon, Florida, valued at about $143,000, with a mortgage of more than $367,000. A federal bankruptcy trustee later determined they hid ownership of about 35 acres in Haiti from creditors. Florida records show Sanon started about a dozen businesses over the last 20 years, all of which failed, including ones that appeared related to medical imaging, physical therapy, fossil fuel trading, real estate and veganism. Sanon’s arrest comes as a growing number of politicians have challenged interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who is currently in charge of Haiti with backing from police and the military. U.S. officials, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, met Sunday with Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, whom supporters have named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph, according to the White House National Security Council. The delegation also met with Haiti’s National Police and reviewed the security of critical infrastructure, it said. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance. She said deployment of U.S. troops remained “under review,” but also suggested that Haiti’s political uncertainty was a complicating factor. Read: Gangs complicate Haiti effort to recover from assassination “What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership,” Psaki said. U.S. President Joe Biden said he was closely following developments, adding: “The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti’s political leaders need to come together for the good of their country.” Meanwhile, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Haiti’s request for security assistance is being examined. The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990, but the last U.N. military peacekeepers left the country in 2017.