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Deadly capturing of two Haitian journalists in Port-au-Prince attracts condemnation as gang violence continues to soar.
Two Haitian journalists have been killed whereas reporting within the nation’s capital on the weekend, a journalists’ affiliation and information shops mentioned, as lethal gang violence continues to ripple throughout Port-au-Prince.
The 2 reporters had been fatally shot and their our bodies burned on Sunday whereas they had been reporting on violence within the impoverished neighbourhood of Cite Soleil, which has suffered from heightened gang exercise in current months. Their our bodies haven’t been recovered.
The victims had been recognized as journalists Tayson Latigue, who labored for digital publication Ti Jenn Jounalis, and Frantzsen Charles, a reporter with FS Information Haiti.
“We announce with nice sorrow the loss of life of our journalist and reporter Frantzsen Charles and one other colleague. They had been killed by bandits whereas reporting in Cite Soleil. We demand justice for our colleague,” FS Information Haiti mentioned in an announcement.
Their deaths come amid rising violence in Haiti, the place rival gangs have been battling for management of territory in and across the capital as instability worsened after President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in July of final yr.
The reporters had been investigating violence in Cite Soleil, together with the current killing of a 17-year-old lady, once they had been attacked on Sunday, in response to an announcement from Haiti’s Affiliation of Impartial Journalists.
“The journalists had been simply doing their job,” the group mentioned. “They didn’t commit any crime.”
Dieudonne St-Cyr, a reporter with the affiliation, informed radio station Metropole Haiti that seven journalists had been ambushed by two warring gangs. 5 of the reporters had been capable of escape unhurt.
The affiliation has known as on Haiti’s authorities to deal with rising instability, calling the murders “additional proof of the shortcoming of the state to shield lives and property, which is nothing apart from a violation of human rights”.
It additionally described the killings as a “villainous and odious act”.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry mentioned he was “deeply shocked” by the killings. “We strongly condemn this barbaric act, whereas sending our heartfelt ideas to the households of the victims and their colleagues,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday evening.
Henry has known as for help because the island nation struggles to deal with rising violence, inflation, and gas shortages. “The nation has lots of issues,” he mentioned in a televised speech earlier this week. “I’m calling on everybody to remain calm. The federal government is working with what it has.”
Haitians have taken to the streets to display in opposition to rising prices of dwelling and to name for the removing of Henry, who has pushed again in opposition to accusations that he’s attempting to carry onto energy.
Earlier requires accountability have largely gone unanswered.
In January, two Haitian journalists, Wilguens Louissaint and Amady John Wesley, had been killed by gangs on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince.
Louissaint and Wesley had been additionally reportedly burned alive by armed teams in Laboule 12, a neighbourhood that has been the positioning of violence between numerous gangs.
The April 2000 assassination of Haitian journalist Jean Dominique, the island nation’s most well-known reporter on the time, additionally stays unsolved.
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