Gang members attacked and killed two journalists who were reporting on the reopening of a hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on December 24, 2024, according to a local media collective.
Robert Dimanche, spokeswoman for the Online Media Collective, stated that journalists Jimmy Jean and Markenzy Nathoux were slain at the State University of Haiti Hospital “during an attack by bandits from the coalition ‘Viv Ansanm’ (‘Living Together’)”.
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According to Dimanche, additional journalists who were hurt during the gunfight are receiving care at a different clinic.
Members of the same gang coalition stormed the State University of Haiti Hospital, also called General Hospital, which has been shuttered since February.
Initial accounts state that as the facility was being reopened, attackers opened fire. According to a witness, several people were hurt, but they were unable to specify how many.
Gazette Haiti, a local news station, posted images of injured patients on the hospital floor as part of their broadcast on X about General Hospital, “Journalists injured during an armed attack by the bandits of Viv Ansanm.”
The attack was also covered by Radio Tele Gelaxie, which said that many journalists had been shot.
The incident was deemed “unacceptable” by Haiti’s interim ruling council head, Leslie Voltaire.
“We send our sympathies to the families of the victims, and particularly the police and journalist associations. We assure them that this attack will not stand without consequences,” he stated.
Viv Ansanm burned down the Bernard Mevs Hospital, another facility in Port-au-Prince, last week. Much of the facility was damaged, but no one was harmed.
The shooting is the most recent example of the mounting unrest in the capital of the troubled Caribbean country, where armed gang attacks have been intensifying in many neighborhoods for over a month.
According to the UN and a local NGO, a “powerful gang leader” massacred “voodoo practitioners” in early December, killing close to 200 individuals.
The number of assaults by armed groups, who are suspected of carrying out many killings, rapes, looting, and kidnappings for ransom, has not decreased despite a multinational effort under Kenya’s leadership and supported by the United States and the United Nations.
The attacks have also targeted important structures and infrastructure, so the capital’s airport had to close to commercial traffic in November.
