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At least three people died when armed men in Haiti opened fire at journalists, police and medical staff during a briefing to announce the reopening of the country’s biggest public hospital.<\/p>\n
Two journalists and a police officer were reportedly shot dead, while others were wounded in Tuesday’s attack in the general hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n
The site had been recaptured by Haiti’s government in July, after being occupied and destroyed by gangs.<\/p>\n
The Viv Ansanm gang alliance, which controls much of the city, has owned up to the attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pictures posted online appear to show several people injured or dead inside the building. <\/p>\n
Journalists were waiting for the arrival of Health Minister Lorthe Blema when the shooting began.<\/p>\n
Journalists Markenzy Nathoux and Jimmy Jean were killed during the attack, Robest Dimanche, spokesman for the Online Media Collective, told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
Other journalists were wounded, he added.<\/p>\n
An officer was also killed, police spokesman Lionel Lazarre told AFP. <\/p>\n
“It felt like a terrible movie,” Dieugo Andr\u00e9, a photojournalist who witnessed the violence, was quoted as saying by The Haitian Times. <\/p>\n
“I have the blood of several injured journalists on my clothes.”<\/p>\n
In an online video claiming the attack, the Viv Ansanm gang alliance said it had not authorised the reopening of the hospital, which they occupied and destroyed in March.<\/p>\n
The head of Haiti’s presidential transitional council, Leslie Voltaire, said: “We express our sympathy to all the victims’ families, in particularly to the Haiti National Police and all the journalists’ associations. <\/p>\n
“We guarantee them that this act will not remain without consequences.”<\/p>\n
People in Haiti continue to suffer with unbearable levels of gang violence, despite the installation of a new transition government in April and the deployment of an international force led by Kenyan police officers six months ago.<\/p>\n
Haiti has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then-president, Jovenel Mo\u00efse. <\/p>\n
An estimated 85% of Port-au-Prince is still under gang control. <\/p>\n
The UN says that as many as 5,000 people have been killed in violence in Haiti this year alone, and the country is now on the verge of collapse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n