The US top diplomat spoke by phone with Haiti’s de facto prime minister, Ariel Henri, and advocated for an “urgent” process of political transition, a US official said, while calling for an “international response” to the crisis in Haiti, which has escalated from last week.

Anthony Blinken referred in his discussion with the head of the Haitian government to the “urgent need to accelerate the transition to a larger, inclusive government that includes far more political forces and has the necessary breadth” to lead the country to “electoral period,” explained Brian Nichols, the State Department’s senior official in charge of Latin America, during a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington.

In the country, without a president and a parliament at the moment, elections have been held since 2016 and the prime minister is increasingly in doubt. He had been named by President Jovenel Moise shortly before the assassination of the head of state in 2021 and was supposed to leave office in early February.

The US secretary of state also contacted the president of Guyana, Mohamed Irfan Ali, who holds the rotating presidency of the Caribbean Community of States (CARICOM), with whom he discussed the “intense diplomatic efforts” underway to address the crisis.

“We urgently need to do more,” Brian Nicholls said, adding that the “humanitarian dimensions” of the crisis require an “international response,” in “the same way the international community responds to challenges in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip.”

Mr. Nichols declined to specify Mr. Henri’s whereabouts.

The Haitian prime minister, who failed to return to the capital Port-au-Prince, landed in the US territory of Puerto Rico on Tuesday.