Haiti’s online media association said two reporters were killed and several others were wounded in a gang attack on Tuesday on the reopening of Port-au-Prince’s biggest public hospital.

Street gangs have taken over an estimated 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and they forced the closure of the General Hospital early this year. Authorities had pledged to reopen the facility Tuesday but as journalists gathered to cover the event, suspected gang members opened fire in a vicious Christmas Eve attack.

Robert Dimanche, a spokesman for the Online Media Collective, identified the dead journalists as Markenzy Nathoux and Jimmy Jean. Dimanche said an unspecified number of reporters had also been wounded in the attack, which he blamed on the Viv Ansanm coalition of gangs.

Authorities had pledged to reopen the facility Tuesday but as journalists gathered to cover the event, suspected gang members opened fire in a vicious Christmas Eve attack.

Authorities had pledged to reopen the facility Tuesday but as journalists gathered to cover the event, suspected gang members opened fire in a vicious Christmas Eve attack. ( 

Image:

AP)

Haiti’s interim president, Leslie Voltaire, said in an address to the nation that journalists and police were among the victims of the attack. He did not specify how many casualties there were, or give a breakdown for the dead or wounded.

“I send my sympathies to the people who were victims, the national police and the journalists,” Voltaire said while pledging that “this crime is not going to go unpunished.”

A video obtained by the Associated Press which was posted online by the reporters trapped inside the hospital seemingly showed what appeared to be two lifeless bodies of men on stretchers, their clothes bloodied. One of the men had a lanyard with a press credential around his neck.

Radio Télé Métronome initially reported that seven journalists and two police officers were wounded. Police and officials did not immediately respond to calls for information on the attack. As previously stated, nearly 90 percent of the city has been overrun by the gang who in addition to the hospital attack, also went after the country’s largest prisons.

Johnson “Izo” André, considered Haiti’s most powerful gang leader and part of a gang known as Viv Ansanm, which that has taken control of much of Port-au-Prince, posted a video on social media claiming responsibility for the attack.

Radio Télé Métronome initially reported that seven journalists and two police officers were wounded. Police and officials did not immediately respond to calls for information on the attack.

Radio Télé Métronome initially reported that seven journalists and two police officers were wounded. Police and officials did not immediately respond to calls for information on the attack. ( 

Image:

AP)

The video said the gang coalition had not authorized the hospital’s reopening. This is not the first time that Haitian journalists have been targeted.

In 2023, two local journalists were killed in the space of a couple of weeks — radio reporter Dumesky Kersaint was fatally shot in mid-April that year, while journalist Ricot Jean was found dead later that month.

In July, former Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, more widely known as the General Hospital, after authorities regained control of it from gangs. The Associated Press reported that the walls of the building had been left ravaged and strewn with debris. Walls and nearby buildings were riddled with bullet holes, signaling fights between police and gangs. The hospital is across the street from the National Palace, the scene of several battles in recent months.