In Haiti, Gang Massacres and Journalist Murders Expose the Country’s Fragility
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In Haiti, gangs have killed hundreds of people and shot journalists at a news conference, exposing the country’s fragility and the government’s failures.
By David C. Adams and Frances Robles
David C. Adams and Frances Robles reported from Florida
A fresh injection of about 150 foreign officers arrived in Haiti this weekend to bolster an international security force charged with reigning in the powerful and well-armed gangs that have inflicted so much misery on the country for months.
But if the past is any guide this latest infusion is unlikely to make much of a difference.
Back-to-back massacres that killed more than 300 people, followed by a Christmas Eve assault on Haiti’s largest public hospital have underscored the Haitian government’s increasing lack of control over the nation’s deepening crisis.
A news conference to announce the reopening of a public hospital that had been closed for nine months because of gang violence came under another gang attack, killing two reporters and a police officer.
More than two dozen journalists caught in the ambush were trapped for two hours triaging seven wounded colleagues before they were rescued. They ripped their own clothing to fashion tourniquets and used tampons to stanch the bleeding because, witnesses said, the few doctors at the hospital ran for their lives. Reporters escaped by climbing a rear wall.
“There was blood all over the floor and on our clothes,” said Jephte Bazil, a reporter with an online news outlet, Machann Zen Haïti, adding that the hospital had nothing “available to treat the victims.”
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