Two journalists murdered by a gang

Six months after the assassination of President Moïse, Haiti descends further into chaos. Two Haitian journalists were murdered Thursday by a gang operating in an area on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, said a radio station which employed one of the two victims.

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Wilguens Louissaint and Amady John Wesley were killed in a shooting, told AFP the employer of the second, Radio Ecoute FM. A third journalist who accompanied them was able to escape, according to the same source. These assassinations come at a time when Haiti has been, for months, under the control of gangs whose influence has largely extended beyond the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.

The area of ​​Laboule 12, where the three journalists went for a report on Thursday, is the subject of intense fighting between several armed gangs who want to ensure control. The path that crosses it is the only way alternative to reach the southern half of the country, unable to take the national road totally controlled, since June, by one of the most powerful gangs in Haiti.

Nearly 1,000 kidnappings last year

The political crisis in this poor Caribbean country, further aggravated by the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse six months ago, has only worsened the security situation. At least 950 kidnappings were recorded in Haiti in 2021, according to the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, an organization based in Port-au-Prince.

Under-equipped in the face of criminal groups with a war arsenal, the Haitian police have not organized large-scale operations against gangs since March 2021. On March 12, the police attempted to intervene in a district of the capital known to be used by a gang as a place of sequestration of kidnapped people. Four policemen were then killed, and their bodies and equipment could never be recovered.