Politician and journalist killed in Haiti

(CMR) A well-known politician and a journalist were shot and killed in Haiti last week as the country continues to deal with escalating gang violence, economic turmoil, and a new cholera outbreak.

Politician Éric Jean-Baptiste (52) and a bodyguard were both killed in an ambush sometime after 9 p.m. by armed men in Laboule, Haiti National Police said. Jean-Baptiste, the current secretary general of the Assembly of Progressive National Democrats, was on his way home with a member of his security team when their vehicle was shot up, causing the vehicle to overturn, the Miami Herald reported.

Tess Gary, a journalist from LeBon radio, was found dead in the city of Les Cayes on 24 October.

Jean-Baptiste, who survived an earlier attempt on his life in 2018. was reportedly killed in an area near the upscale Pèlerin 5 neighborhood where former President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated last year. The head of the Port-au-Prince Bar Association, Monferrier Dorval, was also killed in his driveway by unknown assailants in the area in 2020.

In a statement Saturday, the interim Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry said: “the horrific assassination” of Jean-Baptiste and his bodyguard has once again plunged the nation into turmoil.”

“We strongly condemn this heinous crime against this patriot, this moderate politician committed to change,” Haiti’s Ministry of Communications said.

The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti, BINUH, also condemned the assassination along with recent attacks against journalists in Haiti.

“His murder constitutes an attack on these fundamental values. It is imperative that the circumstances surrounding his death be clarified and that the perpetrators of this assassination be arrested and brought to justice. The same goes for other serious crimes committed recently, including the murder of Tess Gary, a journalist from LeBon radio, who was found dead in the city of Les Cayes on Oct. 24, and the attempted murder of Roberson Alphonse, a journalist from daily Le Nouvelliste on Oct. 25, 2022,” BINUH stated.

Roberson Alphonse, a  newspaper and radio journalist, was traveling through the Delmas 40B neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, headed to work at Magik 9, where he hosts a daily morning news program on the radio when he was shot in both arms by unknown assailants.

The United Nation has expressed concern about the “worsening climate of insecurity and urges the national authorities to redouble their efforts to improve the security climate.”

A gang blockade of the country’s main petroleum terminal, Varreux, is headed into its eighth week and continues to create food, fuel and water shortages amid the new cholera outbreak, according to Miami Herald. The United Nations said cholera was now present in most of the country’s regional departments.

Haiti’s gang violence has forced nearly 100,000 residents to leave their homes, most settling in sordid encampments on vacant lands and public plazas.