A survivor of the worst gang attack on Haitian journalists says colleagues were cut down by bullets
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A survivor of the worst gang attack on Haitian journalists in recent memory described Wednesday seeing colleagues cut down by bullets and reporters with head and chest wounds going an hour or more without help. Two reporters and one police officer died in Tuesday's attack at the reopening of Port-au-Prince's biggest public hospital. Seven journalists covering the event were wounded.
“Some were hit in the chest,” photographer Jean Fregens Regala recalled. “Some of the journalists had part of their face destroyed, some were shot in the mouth, or the head.”. Members of the Viv Ansanm coalition of street gangs, which has taken control of much of Port-au-Prince, had surrounded the hospital and opened fire through a metal gate. The gangs later said they were angry the government had announced the re-opening of the hospital without their permission.
Video from inside at the time of the attack shows a metal gate outside the hospital buckling under a hail of gunfire, as reporters scrambled to try to get inside the building. “All the journalists started moving to go inside the hospital because we heard that the gunfire was getting close to us,” recalled Regala. “I was hiding behind by the gate to put myself somewhere safe but other journalists were rushing to go inside the hospital and there was non-stop shooting.".
