PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home Wednesday, with police killing four suspects and arresting two others hours later amid growing chaos in a country already enduring gang violence and protests of his increasingly authoritarian rule.

Three police officers held hostage by the suspected gunmen were freed late Wednesday after police surrounded a house where some of the suspects were hiding, said Léon Charles, chief of Haiti's National Police.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said the police and military were in control of security in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where a history of dictatorship and political upheaval have long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule.