The IPI global network strongly condemns the brutal killing of two young Haitian journalists, Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue, on September 11. We are alarmed by the escalating gang violence toward journalists and other civilians in Haiti and call on authorities to thoroughly investigate the attack and to ensure the safety of journalists working in the country.聽聽
Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue were by heavily armed, unidentified perpetrators in the Cit茅 Soleil neighbourhood of the country鈥檚 capital, Port-au-Prince, on September 11. Charles, a reporter for online news outlet FS News Haiti, and Lartigue, the founder of social media news outlet Tij茅n Jounalis, were reporting on rising gang violence in the area with five other journalists and interviewing the family of a teenager who was killed the day before by a stray bullet.聽
After conducting the interviews, the group of seven journalists was leaving the neighbourhood on motorbikes marked with 鈥淧RESS鈥� signs when they were ambushed and shot at by armed individuals, who were of the G9 gang. The other journalists were able to escape unharmed, but Charles and Lartigue were fatally wounded. , the bodies of the journalists were allegedly burned, though no remains have been found.
to one of the surviving journalists, the attackers seized Charles and Lartigue鈥檚 motorbike and equipment. One of the survivors told that the team was deliberately targeted by the gang members. Pierre Ricot, a journalist from Patience Presse who was part of the group, said in an that the journalists had the approval of the family and a gang leader to visit the area. Ricot and his colleagues tried to call the victim鈥檚 phones for half an hour after the attack but could not reach them.
Cit茅 Soleil is one of the capital鈥檚 most impoverished neighborhoods that has been the center of between rival armed groups. This comes amid a recent wave of intense over rising fuel prices and rising crime that have rocked Port-au-Prince in recent weeks.
Haitian National Police spokesperson Garry Desrosiers that police were aware of the shooting and had information that Charles and Lartigue had been killed. Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry condemned the killings in a . Dieudonn茅 St-Cyr, secretary of the Collective of Online Media (CMEL), with The Haitian Times that the union was trying to help the families of the two victims retrieve the bodies.
鈥淧ress freedom is greatly threatened in Haiti, especially over the past 10 years鈥�, St-Cyr told The Haitian Times. 鈥淭hey are threatened not only by bandits but also by police officers who sometimes take journalists for their enemies and attack them or consider them allies of bandits when they [journalists] go to the slums area to do their work.鈥�
The attack was the second time this year that journalists have been killed by gang violence in Haiti.
In January, two other journalists, Wilguens Louissaint and John Wesley Amady, were burned alive by gang members while reporting in Laboule, south of Port-au-Prince. In addition, photojournalist Maximilien Lazard was killed by police while covering a demonstration in the capital city in February 2022.
鈥淲e are shocked by the brutal killing of Frantzsen Charles and Tayson Lartigue, and share our deepest condolences with the families and colleagues of these journalists. Those responsible for this killing must be brought to justice鈥�, IPI Director of Advocacy Amy Brouillette said. 鈥淲e are also alarmed by the extremely violent and unsafe conditions in which journalists in Haiti operate. We urge the government to take immediate steps to protect the press from further senseless violence.鈥澛�