Hait­ian Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry an­nounced ear­ly Tues­day that he would re­sign once a tran­si­tion­al pres­i­den­tial coun­cil is cre­at­ed, bow­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure to save the coun­try over­whelmed by vi­o­lent gangs that some ex­perts say have un­leashed a low-scale civ­il war.

Hen­ry made the an­nounce­ment hours af­ter of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Caribbean lead­ers and U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken met in Ja­maica to ur­gent­ly dis­cuss a so­lu­tion to halt Haiti’s spi­ral­ing cri­sis and agreed to a joint pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish a tran­si­tion­al coun­cil.

“The gov­ern­ment that I’m run­ning can­not re­main in­sen­si­tive in front of this sit­u­a­tion. There is no sac­ri­fice that is too big for our coun­try,” Hen­ry said in a video­taped state­ment. “The gov­ern­ment I’m run­ning will re­move it­self im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the in­stal­la­tion of the coun­cil.”

Hen­ry has been un­able to en­ter Haiti be­cause the vi­o­lence closed its main in­ter­na­tion­al air­ports. He had ar­rived in Puer­to Ri­co a week ago, af­ter be­ing barred from land­ing in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, where of­fi­cials said that he lacked a re­quired flight plan. Do­mini­can of­fi­cials al­so closed the air­space to flights to and from Haiti.

It wasn’t im­me­di­ate­ly clear who would be cho­sen to lead Haiti out of the cri­sis in which heav­i­ly armed gangs have burned po­lice sta­tions, at­tacked the main air­port and raid­ed two of the coun­try’s biggest pris­ons. The raids re­sult­ed in the re­lease of more than 4,000 in­mates.

Scores of peo­ple have been killed, and more than 15,000 are home­less af­ter flee­ing neigh­bor­hoods raid­ed by gangs. Food and wa­ter are dwin­dling as stands and stores sell­ing to im­pov­er­ished Haitians run out of goods. The main port in Port-au-Prince re­mains closed, strand­ing dozens of con­tain­ers with crit­i­cal sup­plies.

The ur­gent meet­ing in Ja­maica was or­ga­nized by Cari­com, a re­gion­al trade bloc that has pressed for months for a tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment in Haiti while vi­o­lent protests in the coun­try de­mand­ed Hen­ry’s res­ig­na­tion.

Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali said that the tran­si­tion­al coun­cil would have sev­en vot­ing mem­bers and two non­vot­ing ones.

Those with votes in­clude the Pitit De­salin par­ty, run by for­mer sen­a­tor and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Moïse Jean-Charles, who is now an al­ly of Guy Philippe, a for­mer rebel leader who led a suc­cess­ful 2004 coup and was re­cent­ly re­leased from a Unit­ed States prison af­ter plead­ing guilty to mon­ey laun­der­ing. Al­so with a vote is the EDE par­ty of for­mer prime min­is­ter Charles Joseph; the Fan­mi Lavalas par­ty; the De­cem­ber 21 coali­tion led by Hen­ry; the Mon­tana Ac­cord group; and mem­bers of the pri­vate sec­tor.

Be­fore shar­ing de­tails of the pro­posed tran­si­tion­al coun­cil, Ali said, “I want to pause and thank Prime Min­is­ter Hen­ry for his ser­vice to Haiti,” as Caribbean lead­ers and oth­ers clapped.

Hen­ry served the longest sin­gle term as prime min­is­ter since Haiti’s 1987 con­sti­tu­tion was ap­proved, a sur­pris­ing feat for a po­lit­i­cal­ly un­sta­ble coun­try with a con­stant turnover of pre­miers. He was sworn in as prime min­is­ter near­ly two weeks af­ter the Ju­ly 7, 2021, as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse.

Crit­ics of Hen­ry note he was nev­er elect­ed by the peo­ple, much less Par­lia­ment, since it re­mains nonex­is­tent af­ter the terms of the last re­main­ing sen­a­tors ex­pired in Jan­u­ary 2023, leav­ing Haiti with­out a sin­gle elect­ed of­fi­cial.

As Haiti pre­pares for new lead­er­ship, some ex­perts ques­tion the role that heav­i­ly armed gangs who con­trol 80% of Port-au-Prince will play.

“Even if you have a dif­fer­ent kind of gov­ern­ment, the re­al­i­ty is that you need to talk to the gangs,” said Robert Fat­ton, a Hait­ian pol­i­tics ex­pert at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. “You can’t sup­press them.”

He said of­fi­cials will still have to deal with them and try to con­vince them to give up their weapons, “but what would be their con­ces­sions?”

Fat­ton not­ed that gangs have su­prema­cy in terms of con­trol­ling the cap­i­tal. “If they have that su­prema­cy, and there is no coun­ter­vail­ing force, it’s no longer a ques­tion if you want them at the ta­ble, they may just take the ta­ble.”

Ear­li­er on Mon­day, Blinken an­nounced an ad­di­tion­al $100 mil­lion to fi­nance the de­ploy­ment of a multi­na­tion­al force to Haiti. Blinken al­so an­nounced an­oth­er $33 mil­lion in hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid and the cre­ation of a joint pro­pos­al agreed on by Caribbean lead­ers and “all of the Hait­ian stake­hold­ers to ex­pe­dite a po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion” and cre­ate a “pres­i­den­tial col­lege.”

He said the col­lege would take “con­crete steps” he did not iden­ti­fy to meet the needs of Hait­ian peo­ple and en­able the pend­ing de­ploy­ment of the multi­na­tion­al force to be led by Kenya. Blinken al­so not­ed that the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of De­fense dou­bled its sup­port for the mis­sion, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly set aside $100 mil­lion.

While lead­ers met be­hind closed doors, Jim­my Chérizier, con­sid­ered Haiti’s most pow­er­ful gang leader, told re­porters that if the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues down the cur­rent road, “it will plunge Haiti in­to fur­ther chaos.”

“We Haitians have to de­cide who is go­ing to be the head of the coun­try and what mod­el of gov­ern­ment we want,” said Chérizier, a for­mer elite po­lice of­fi­cer known as Bar­be­cue, who leads the gang fed­er­a­tion G9 Fam­i­ly and Al­lies. “We are al­so go­ing to fig­ure out how to get Haiti out of the mis­ery it’s in now.”

Pow­er­ful gangs have been at­tack­ing key gov­ern­ment tar­gets across Haiti’s cap­i­tal of Port-au-Prince since Feb. 29. When the at­tacks be­gan, Hen­ry was in Kenya push­ing for the Unit­ed Na­tions-backed de­ploy­ment of a po­lice force from the East African coun­try af­ter it was de­layed by a court rul­ing.

Late Mon­day, the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment an­nounced it was ex­tend­ing a night­time cur­few un­til March 14 in an at­tempt to pre­vent fur­ther at­tacks.

Co­to re­port­ed from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Edith M. Led­er­er at the Unit­ed Na­tions con­tributed to this re­port.

BY DÁNI­CA CO­TO AND EVENS SANON

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)