Two more journalists killed in Haiti as gang violence continues to rage

Two more journalists have been killed in Haiti in the past month as rampant gang violence has gripped the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.

Ricot Jean, who worked for Radio-Tele Evolution Inter was found dead on Tuesday, a day after he was reportedly kidnapped by men wearing police uniforms. Jean was a prominent cultural activist in the Haitian capital and hosted a weekly radio show.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that radio reporter Dumesky Kersaint was fatally shot in mid-April. Kersaint was reportedly killed by a stray bullet “between the evening of April 15 and the morning of April 16” in the Mahotiere 83 neighborhood in the municipality of Carrefour.

“The security crisis in the country is putting journalists at a constant risk of extreme violence. It is the authorities’ responsibility to make sure reporters can do their jobs without fear of violence,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.

The National Association of Haitian Media also condemned the killings, adding that the “climate of tolerated and fueled violence” led to Kersaint’s death. He was an online journalist for Radio Tele Inurep, according to local media reports.

At least two other journalists have been killed in the troubled Caribbean country this year amid an unprecedented surge in gang violence.

John Wesley Amady and Wilguens Louissaint were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince in January.

At least nine journalists were killed in Haiti last year, the deadliest year for Haitian journalism in recent history, according to Unesco.

Between January and March the UN human rights office counted 531 killings, 300 injuries and 277 kidnappings in gang-related incidents, mostly in Haiti’s gang-dominated capital.

Haiti’s predicament is rooted in hundreds of years of foreign exploitation, decades of dictatorial rule under the Duvalier dynasty, and a string of natural disasters including a 2010 earthquake that levelled Haiti’s capital and killed more than 200,000 people.

But the current crisis intensified in 2021 when Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his Port-au-Prince mansion. Since then, politically powerful gangs have commandeered more than 60% of the capital, elements of the resource-starved police force have gone into open revolt, and Haitian politics has been consumed by infighting.