The head of Haiti’s Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion­al Coun­cil, (TPC),  Leslie Voltaire, has vowed that the au­thor­i­ties will seek to bring to jus­tice those re­spon­si­ble for the deaths of three peo­ple, in­clud­ing two jour­nal­ists at the re­open­ing of the coun­try’s biggest pub­lic hos­pi­tal on Tues­day.

“We ex­press our sym­pa­thy to all the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, in par­tic­u­lar­ly to the Haiti Na­tion­al Po­lice and all the jour­nal­ists’ as­so­ci­a­tions,” Voltaire said, adding “we guar­an­tee them that this act will not re­main with­out con­se­quences”.

Po­lice spokesman Li­onel Lazarre said that one of­fi­cer was killed and Robest Di­manche, spokesman for the On­line Me­dia Col­lec­tive, said jour­nal­ists Marken­zy Nathoux and Jim­my Jean were al­so killed dur­ing the at­tack as armed men opened fire at jour­nal­ists, po­lice and med­ical staff as peo­ple gath­ered for the re­open­ing of the gen­er­al hos­pi­tal in the cap­i­tal Port-au-Prince.

The site had been re­cap­tured by Haiti’s gov­ern­ment in Ju­ly, af­ter be­ing oc­cu­pied and de­stroyed by gangs.

The Viv Ansanm gang al­liance, which con­trols much of the city, has said it car­ried out the at­tack and pic­tures post­ed on so­cial me­dia show sev­er­al peo­ple in­jured or dead in­side the build­ing.

Jour­nal­ists were wait­ing for the ar­rival of Health Min­is­ter Lorthe Ble­ma when the shoot­ing be­gan.

“It felt like a ter­ri­ble movie,” Dieu­go An­dré, a pho­to­jour­nal­ist who wit­nessed the vi­o­lence, was quot­ed as say­ing by The Hait­ian Times.

“I have the blood of sev­er­al in­jured jour­nal­ists on my clothes.”

In an on­line video claim­ing the at­tack, the Viv Ansanm gang al­liance said it had not au­tho­rised the re­open­ing of the hos­pi­tal, which they oc­cu­pied and de­stroyed in March.

Haiti has been en­gulfed in a wave of gang vi­o­lence since the as­sas­si­na­tion in 2021 of the then-pres­i­dent, Jovenel Moïse. An es­ti­mat­ed 85 per cent of Port-au-Prince is still un­der gang con­trol.

A new Unit­ed Na­tions re­port says a lit­tle over two weeks af­ter a surge of vi­o­lence in the Cité Soleil com­mune of Haiti’s cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince more than 207 peo­ple were ex­e­cut­ed by the Wharf Jérémie gang.

The re­port by the UN In­te­grat­ed Of­fice in Haiti (BIN­UH) and the Of­fice of the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights (OHCHR) cov­ers the pe­ri­od be­tween De­cem­ber 6 and 11, dur­ing which 134 men and 73 women were killed.

The UN said on Mon­day that most of the vic­tims were el­der­ly peo­ple ac­cused of prac­tic­ing voodoo and caus­ing the gang leader’s child’s ill­ness.

Oth­er vic­tims in­clud­ed those who tried to flee the area for fear of reprisals or were sus­pect­ed of leak­ing in­for­ma­tion about the crimes to lo­cal me­dia, the UN said.

PORT AU PRINCE, Dec 25, CMC -

CMC/gf/ir/2024