Men pick up aluminum pieces at the site where a tanker truck exploded in Cap-Haitien, Haiti on December 14, 2021. Photo: AFP

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry told AFP in an interview Monday that he was targeted in an assassination attempt during weekend national day celebrations.

"An attempt has been made against me personally. My life has been put in the crosshairs," said Henry, who has been de-facto running the country since the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Clashes between police and armed groups erupted on Saturday during official celebrations in the city of Gonaives, some 150 kilometers north of the capital Port-au-Prince, where Haiti's declaration of independence was signed over 200 years ago. 

Photos provided to AFP by Henry's office show a bullet impact mark on the windshield of his armored vehicle.

The events come weeks after groups of citizens and members of armed gangs in Gonaives had violently expressed their opposition to Henry's visiting their city.

"I knew I was taking a risk," Henry told AFP in a telephone interview.

"We cannot let bandits from any background, driven by the lowest financial interests, blackmail the state," he said.

Long plagued by poverty, natural disasters and gang violence, the Caribbean nation has been without a functioning parliament and with a paralyzed judiciary for two years, and Moise's assassination has only exacerbated the situation.

His murder six months ago in the private presidential residence underscored the deep political, social and economic crisis the Caribbean country has been stuck in for years. 

While several Haitians, two US citizens of Haitian origin and about 15 Colombian nationals have been accused of taking part in the assassination and been imprisoned in Port-au-Prince since the summer, the investigation itself has shown few further signs of progress. 

One of the suspects, arrested in October 2021 in Jamaica, will be returned to Colombia due to a lack of evidence, Jamaican media said on Saturday. 

The growing reach of criminal gangs across the country is undermining hopes of improving the living conditions for ordinary Haitians, who are victims of daily kidnappings by ruthless groups. 

In April 2021, 10 people were kidnapped by 400 Mawozo.