HAITI: Unidentified gunman shoot at radio station in Port-au-Prince

NOVEMBER 6, 2007 
Posted December 7, 2007

Radio-Télé Ginen
ATTACKED

Several unidentified gunmen shot at the Port-au-Prince offices of local station Radio-Télé Ginen, causing minor damages to the building’s infrastructure and to a car owned by the station, according to reports in the Haitian press. No one from the station’s staff was injured but a passerby was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

Around 7:15 p.m. an unspecified number of gunmen shot at least 35 times at the front of Radio-Télé Ginen’s offices in Delmas, a neighborhood in the north of the Haitian capital, local news reports said. The damages to the building were minor. However, the assailants also shot several rounds at a car owned by the radio station, which was parked outside the building, according to press reports. A woman who was walking on the opposite sidewalk was shot once in the abdomen and taken to a local hospital, where she received immediate medical treatment, reported the Port-au-Prince-based Radio Ksikeya.

According to Agence France-Presse, the attack took place during the radio station’s evening news show. Jean Lucien Borges, director of Radio-Télé Ginen, told local reporters that the station had not received any threats. Borges said he saw no connection between the station’s news coverage and the attack, reported AFP.

Haitian journalists’ associations called on authorities to conduct a speedy investigation. Local police opened an inquiry on the night of the attack but there have been no arrests yet, according to reports in the Haitian press. Borges told local reporters that the station intended to continue reporting as usual.