Haiti has announced its first two cases of coronavirus.
The president declared a state of emergency in a country with an already fragile healthcare system.
Al Jazeera’s Leah Harding reports.
Haiti is a Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic to its east. Though it’s still recovering from a 2010 earthquake, many of Haiti’s landmarks dating to the early 19th century remain intact. These include Citadelle la Ferrière, a mountaintop fortress.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces and declared Haiti’s sovereignty on 1 January 1804.
Haiti became the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt. Apart from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all of Haiti’s first leaders were former slaves.
