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Monday, February 17, 2025

Mourners bury journalist killed in one of Haiti’s worst attacks on reporters

by

Newsdesk
32 days ago
20250116
Relatives cry during the funeral of journalist Jimmy Jean, who was killed during an armed gang attack on the General Hospital, in the Petion-Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Relatives cry during the funeral of journalist Jimmy Jean, who was killed during an armed gang attack on the General Hospital, in the Petion-Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Odelyn Joseph

Anger mixed with tears at the bur­ial Thurs­day of one of the two jour­nal­ists killed in an at­tack last month by armed gan gs while cov­er­ing the gov­ern­ment’s abortive at­tempt to re­open Haiti’s largest pub­lic hos­pi­tal.

Jim­my Jean wore an all-white suit as he lay in an open cof­fin that friends and fam­i­ly leaned over to pay their re­spects, some cry­ing over his body. The 44-year-old fa­ther of six chil­dren had cov­ered dai­ly news for the on­line news out­let Moun Afe Bon.

“You left us re­al young,” Jean’s step­moth­er kept re­peat­ing as she left the church, sob­bing qui­et­ly.

On Christ­mas Eve, Jean was gunned down when gangs opened fire on po­lice, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and jour­nal­ists gath­ered for the an­tic­i­pat­ed re­open­ing of the Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in down­town Port-au-Prince. Al­so killed were fel­low jour­nal­ist Mar­ck­endy Na­toux, who worked for Voice of Amer­i­ca in Haiti, and a Hait­ian po­lice of­fi­cer. At least sev­en oth­er re­porters were wound­ed in Haiti’s worst at­tack on jour­nal­ists in re­cent years.

The at­tack prompt­ed of­fi­cials to re­move the health min­is­ter and in­def­i­nite­ly sus­pend the re­open­ing of the hos­pi­tal. Po­lice have con­tin­ued to try to re­pel at­tacks from armed gangs in the down­town area around the fa­cil­i­ty.

Jour­nal­ists are de­mand­ing com­pen­sa­tion from the gov­ern­ment be­yond the mon­ey fam­i­lies have re­ceived to bury the two re­porters killed.

Robest Di­manche, spokesman for the On­line Me­dia Col­lec­tive, a group that de­fends the rights of on­line jour­nal­ists in Haiti, said the gov­ern­ment had in­vit­ed jour­nal­ists to the hos­pi­tal’s sched­uled re­open­ing but failed to cre­ate a safe space.

“We want the state to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Di­manche said. “We con­tin­ue to work for the vic­tims so they can ob­tain jus­tice.”

Short­ly af­ter the at­tack, John­son “Izo” An­dré, con­sid­ered Haiti’s most pow­er­ful gang leader and part of the Viv Ansanm group of gangs, which has tak­en con­trol of 85% of the Port-au-Prince cap­i­tal, post­ed a video on so­cial me­dia claim­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the at­tack. He said he had not au­tho­rized the re­open­ing of the hos­pi­tal, which gangs had pre­vi­ous­ly pil­laged.

More than two dozen re­porters cov­ered Jean’s fu­ner­al on Thurs­day in one of the world’s most dan­ger­ous places to be a jour­nal­ist. Al­so at­tend­ing Jean’s fu­ner­al were his girl­friend, Marie Mi­ka Hon­oré, and his youngest son, 2-year-old Youwen­s­ki Jean, al­so dressed in all white.

“He was very nice, in­tel­li­gent,” Hon­oré re­called of Jim­my Jean. “He most­ly con­cen­trat­ed on his work.”

She said hours af­ter he left on a mo­tor­cy­cle to cov­er the hos­pi­tal re­open­ing, the dri­ver came back to tell her that he had been killed.

“I miss Jim­my a lot,” she said. “We nev­er had any ar­gu­ments. He took good care of his kids and me.”

The jour­nal­ists were among the more than 5,600 peo­ple re­port­ed killed across Haiti last year, ac­cord­ing to the U.N.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)

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