Haitian gangsters opened fire on a government press conference at Haiti’s largest public hospital on Tuesday, killing two journalists and a police officer. The Viv Ansanm gang said it committed the atrocity because it controls that portion of Port-au-Prince, and did not give the hospital permission to resume operations.
The press conference was called at 8:00 a.m. local time to commemorate the reopening of the State University of Haiti Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince, known by its French acronym HUEH or as “General Hospital” to local residents. The hospital was closed in February after gangsters occupied it and destroyed much of the facility.
Videos recorded after police conducted a major operation to evict the gangsters in July showed the walls of the hospital were riddled with bullet holes, emergency vehicles were torched, and medical supplies were looted.
The governments of the United States and France financed construction of a replacement hospital, but then-Interim Prime Minister Garry Conille vowed to rebuild the HUEH, which served thousands of poor Haitians in the nation’s capital. It took several weeks for police to secure the facility enough for international health officials to tour the facility and launch the reconstruction project.
An infographic shows where gunmen opened fire on journalists gathered for a government press conference to announce the reopening of Haiti’s largest public hospital on December 25, 2024. (Photo by Mehmet Yaren Bozgun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Conille was sacked by the Haitian transitional council in a power struggle in November, but work on restoring HUEH continued. The Christmas Eve press conference on Tuesday was supposed to include a triumphant appearance by Health Minister Duckenson Lorthe Blema, who was installed during a cabinet reshuffle after Conille’s departure.
Blema kept reporters waiting until just after 11:00 a.m., when heavily-armed gang members sprayed the hospital with bullets, killing two of the waiting journalists and a police officer. According to the Haitian Association of Journalists, at least seven other reporters were injured in the attack.
Local media immediately pinned the attack on the “bandits of Viv Ansanmn,” an outfit run by one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders, Johnson “Izo” Andre. Horrifying photos of the bullet-riddled hospital were posted to social media, depicting wounded victims strewn across the floor.
“It felt like a terrible movie. I have the blood of several injured journalists on my clothes,” photojournalist Dieugo Andre told the Haitian Times after the attack.
“Some were hit in the chest. Some of the journalists had part of their face destroyed, some were shot in the mouth, or the head,” photographer Jean Fregens Regala told the Associated Press (AP).
Other eyewitnesses said they frantically sought cover behind shipping containers and burned-out cars during the attack. The AP reported gunmen were held at bay by a metal gate surrounding the hospital building, but they opened fire through the bars.
“All the journalists started moving to go inside the hospital because we heard that the gunfire was getting close to us. I was hiding by the gate to put myself somewhere safe, but other journalists were rushing to go inside the hospital and there was non-stop shooting,” Regala said.
Regala said the hospital had no “doctors or nurses” and no medial supplies on hand for the ceremonial reopening, so journalists put plastic bags over their hands and did their best to tend to the wounded.
The Haitian National Police (PNH) said several of their officers were injured repelling the gangsters. Reinforcements were dispatched to secure the hospital area, including Kenyan police officers deployed to Haiti as part of the U.N.-authorized Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS).
An MSS spokesman told the Haitian Times they were not informed of the hospital reopening ceremony in advance by the transitional government, and were not asked to provide additional security for the event.
The AP noted that when reinforcements arrived, gangsters still controlled all the streets around the hospital, so the arriving officers had to use ladders to scale a wall to reach the wounded journalists. Regala said the injured “spent more than an hour losing blood” before receiving proper medical attention.
The Haitian Association of Journalists issued a statement on Tuesday angrily demanding the government stop putting reporters’ lives in danger with publicity stunts if they could not provide proper security. Regala noted reporters came to the hospital believing it would be secure because the health minister was supposed to be there.
The current interim president, Leslie Voltaire, extended “sympathies to the people who were victims, the national police and the journalists,” but the transitional government did not immediately respond to criticism that adequate security was not provided for the hospital reopening event.
Voltaire assured the victims that “this attack will not stand without consequences.”
“This heinous act, which targets an institution dedicated to health and life, constitutes an unacceptable attack on the very foundations of our society,” the interim government said in a statement later on Tuesday.
Gang boss “Izo” Andre posted a social media video on Tuesday claiming responsibility for the attack. Andre said he ordered his thugs to shoot up the hospital because he did not grant permission for HUEH to reopen.
Viv Ansanm set fire to another hospital in Port-au-Prince last week for similar reasons. The Bernard Mevs Hospital served as a base of operations for medical volunteers from a Canadian humanitarian group called Team Broken Earth. The organization stopped sending personnel to Haiti during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, but the hospital they built remained in operation until the gangs destroyed it.
Team Broken Earth co-founder Andrew Furey, who is now premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, called the destruction of the Bernard Mevs Hospital an act of pure “evil.”
“I’m honestly at a loss for words. This place has helped so many people in Haiti. It gave care. It gave hope. It did not deserve this,” Furey said.
