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The Port-au-Prince hospital massacre: A symbol of the relentless advance of armed gangs in Haiti
On Dec. 24, 2024, the 5 Segond gang attacked Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital during its reopening ceremony after a ten-month closure. Two journalists were killed and seven others injured. This massacre highlights the extreme risks faced by reporters in Haiti and reveals how armed groups are using drones for both military operations and propaganda.
Credit: Forbidden Stories
- No police presence had been planned for the reopening ceremony of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital on Dec. 24, 2024 — despite requests from Haiti’s then-health minister — when the 5 Segond gang carried out a deadly assault.
- Haitian gangs are increasingly equipped with drones, which provide them with tactical support and a tool to broadcast their acts of violence and sow terror among the population.
- The gangs do not hesitate to attack journalists, as well as media infrastructure. In March 2025, three radio stations were destroyed in Port-au-Prince.
by Eloïse Layan
July 4, 2025
The echo of explosions and plumes of smoke rising over Port-au-Prince’s neighborhoods barely elicited a shrug from journalist Whisly Desir. He remained engrossed in his phone, fixated on “videos of the tragedy.”
Wearing a red cap and a cross-shaped pendant, he scrolled through them again and again on his screen. “God kept me alive,” he said quietly. But as for the rest, “we’re used to it. The gangs have taken over so much territory.”
On Dec. 24, 2024, Desir was assigned to cover the reopening ceremony of Port-au-Prince’s Hospital of the State University of Haiti, the country’s largest public healthcare facility. The Minister of Health himself was expected to attend. The day before, Desir had scouted the location and filmed the event preparations. The General Hospital, as Port-au-Prince residents call it, located a stone’s throw away from the law school and presidential palace, had been closed since February 2024 due to gang occupation of the city center. But the reopening was officially on, and the news had to be reported.
These images of the General Hospital massacre on December 24 were filmed with a drone owned by the attack’s mastermind, Izo, one of the most powerful gang leaders in Port-au-Prince (Credit: TikTok)
On Christmas Eve morning, around 11:20 a.m., the car carrying Haiti’s then-Health Minister Duckenson Lorthe Blema was making its way down John Brown Avenue. He was minutes away from the hospital he was due to inaugurate. Some 30 journalists and healthcare workers were already gathered at the entrance. “Then suddenly, armed civilians opened fire.”
On his phone, Desir showed us the scene as filmed by journalists. “There’s a lot of shooting, nearly two hours of gunfire,” he said. Bullets riddled the hospital’s gates and walls, trapping the journalists inside. After hours of terror, survivors eventually escaped using a ladder against the side of the building. The minister never arrived; his convoy stopped at the National Palace. The toll was devastating: two journalists and a police officer were killed, while seven reporters were wounded. Traumatized, Desir has joined a support group, hoping it might one day help him “forget” the massacre he witnessed.
Journalist Whisly Desir, a survivor of the General Hospital attack, shares his testimony with Forbidden Stories (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Haitian reporters have become direct targets of gang violence. “Consider journalists as enemies, liable to death if they oppose us,” said gang leader Jimmy Chérizier, better known as “Barbecue,” in October 2024 during one of his TikTok livestreams. In it, he also called for the kidnapping of four journalists renowned for their investigative work.
In Port-au-Prince, journalists documenting the gangs’ territorial expansion and atrocities face constant threats. Media infrastructure is also being targeted; in March 2025, three radio stations in the capital were attacked and set on fire. Gangs accuse journalists of “playing into the hands of the elites,” while a certain fringe of Port-au-Prince residents blame them for favoring the interests of armed groups. Tensions erupted on March 19, 2025, when 10 journalists were beaten while covering a protest against Haiti’s insecurity in the Canapé Vert neighborhood, where the Bwa Kalé — or “sharpened wood” — movement has gained popularity among people wanting to defend themselves from gang violence.
Following these assaults, the Haitian Collective of Online Media spoke out to remind people that “the press is not the enemy, but an ally in the pursuit of truth and justice.”
In April 2025, Reporters Without Borders urged the international community “to act immediately to protect the journalists facing the insecurity and terror plaguing Haiti.”
Jean-Christophe Collègue, former correspondent for Voice of America, is still missing after gangs expanded their territory to the town of Mirebalais, north of Port-au-Prince.
Port-au-Prince (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories)
It was amid this chaos that Forbidden Stories, dedicated to investigating crimes against journalists around the world and continuing their work, traveled to Port-au-Prince in March 2025. In partnership with Haitian outlet AyiboPost, an investigation began into the Dec. 24 hospital massacre, the bloodiest attack on journalists in Haiti’s recent history. This article is the second in a series on the murders of journalists in Haiti and the people behind their deaths.
Drones: A weapon and propaganda tool for gangs
The violence on Dec. 24 was filmed by a drone belonging to a gang — Izo’s gang. One video begins with a static crackle, followed by a voice many Haitians recognize and fear, having heard it so often on social media. Izo claims responsibility for the attack and justifies it, making clear he has little tolerance for press conferences or inaugurations. “We’re attacking them right now … They came to the General Hospital to put on a show. We’re laying traps for them,” he says, mockingly.
He’s not yet 30, but Izo is already one of Port-au-Prince’s most powerful gang leaders. On TikTok, he likes to show off in a swimming pool branded with his name, posing in a Versace t-shirt with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. Other times, he appears in the uniform of the special unit he created, with a bullet-proof vest, a skull-shaped mask and a crest bearing the insignia of the group UVD, or Unité Village de Dieu. Meaning “Village of God Unit,” the name refers to his stronghold, located less than two kilometers from the General Hospital.
Izo in front of his swimming pool, named after him (Credit : Tiktok)
Gang leader Izo appears wearing a uniform of the 5 Segond group’s special unit (Credit: TikTok)
“Viv Ansanm doesn’t give its permission, and yet you go and pull these stunts,” Izo continues in the video. Having established himself as the city’s leader, he is the one who decides whether the state can reopen hospitals and whether journalists can do their jobs.
Since September 2023, Haiti’s gangs have ended their fratricidal wars by uniting under the coalition Viv Ansanm, or “Living Together,” which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Izo’s group, 5 Segond, is a member. The drone videos were sent by an unknown number to a WhatsApp group called RSIP — short for “Renseignement Sécurité Info Partage,” or “Security Intelligence Info Sharing” — where the latest information on attacks carried out in the city is shared.
Other images filmed by one of Izo’s drone. Reginald Balthazar is seen crawling to take shelter (Credit : TikTok)
“You see the man in the blue shirt, crawling on the ground? That’s me,” journalist Reginald Balthazar said. In one of the two drone videos, Balthazar crawls along the hospital’s outer wall for several meters while his colleagues Mackenzy Natoux and Jimmy Jean lie motionless on the ground, killed by 5 Segond’s bullets.
The trauma is compounded by the humiliation of having been filmed by the perpetrators themselves. “That video made me cry a lot,” Balthazar said. “Izo filmed this and made it public … the 5 Segond gang always wants to show its power. It’s more than cruel — it’s criminal.”
Izo watching his drone footage (Credit: Tiktok)
Izo uses his drones to manage his image. His TikTok posts show him facing a large screen, sometimes wearing a bulletproof vest, watching an ongoing attack with an assault rifle placed next to him. The content appears on the accounts “atis.mafia8” — named after Izo’s rap collective — “centrale__5” and “satellite2766,” the latter being where videos of the hospital attack were posted.
A tool for propaganda and a vehicle for terror, drones also provide tactical support to gangs during their operations. “Organized crime in Haiti is adapting to technological change,” wrote the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in a report published in May 2025. “Over the past year, criminal groups have increasingly used commercial drones to track police movements, gather intelligence and coordinate activities.”
Their most audacious attack targeted the Port-au-Prince prison in March 2024. According to the UNODC, 3,500 inmates escaped, while Izo’s drones made it possible to track the movements of police armored vehicles in real time and anticipate the actions of security forces.
“They track us and make our lives difficult … drones have changed everything,” said Officer Jean-Masner Coulanges, who narrowly escaped the Dec. 24 attack. That day, his vehicle was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As he drove past the General Hospital on his way to the police station, he came under fire from the attackers. A fellow officer was killed, while Coulanges was seriously injured.
Stationed at the Port-au-Prince police department, he is used to seeing drones flashing across the night sky. “The gangs are sheltered, but we’re out on the streets. They fly drones over our heads. They can watch where we go, then wait behind a wall and kill us,” he said.
Coulanges blames politicians and customs officials for letting these drones pass into Haiti “so easily.” “How can this happen? We are a legal force, and they have more equipment and more means of communication than we do,” he said of the gangs.
Izo watches the live footage from his drones and gives orders in real time using a radio system. “In almost every video, I see a gang member with a communication device attached to his belt. And we have only one radio for a patrol of six or eight officers. How is that possible?” Coulanges asked.
On the day of the attack on the hospital, Coulanges did not see or hear the drone. However, he recognized the barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle — the one that seriously wounded his lower limbs. Still hospitalized in Cuba, he is recovering slowly from his injuries.
Coulanges is not the only one who was sent to Cuba for surgery. Journalist Vélondie Miracle, who was wounded in the head and left leg on Dec. 24, 2024, and two colleagues, also badly injured, were transferred there as well. Of all the people interviewed, she is the only one who claims to have seen Izo’s drone while she was on the ground.
Miracle also claims to have seen gang members stationed directly opposite, near the maternity ward of the General Hospital and the law school. Many young people, including “a 10- or 11-year-old child” who insulted her, shot at her legs and chanted, “5 Segond pa fè rimè.” Meaning “5 Segond doesn’t joke,” this slogan was popularized in a rap song and is one of the gang’s most frequently used. It warns that 5 Segond does not just talk the talk, but also walks the walk.
The fight against gangs: A security fiasco for the Haitian government
How could an official event of this importance turn into carnage? This question haunts the surviving journalists. “I went there because I thought the area was secure,” Miracle said.
“We were surprised by the small number of police officers,” said her colleague Balthazar. The only police vehicle present in front of the hospital was the white Land Cruiser belonging to Coulanges, who was en route to the police station. On Dec. 24, no police officers were officially deployed to secure the reopening ceremony, despite the announced presence of a member of the government.
“It was supposed to be a day of hope, but it turned out badly,” said former Health Minister Lorthe Blema, who was dismissed following the killings. He told Forbidden Stories of his ambition to reopen the hospital “one day before Christmas, a day of love and peace.” His conviction: not to give in to the gangs, because, in his view, “the state has nothing to fear.” On Dec. 24, 2024, he wanted to demonstrate the government’s ability to reopen Haiti’s largest public health center.
L’hôpital de la paix, one of the few public hospitals still functioning in the capital. (Credit : Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories)
Lorthe Blema had requested the presence of armed forces. However, his letters, which we were able to consult, went unheeded. He allegedly received a verbal agreement by telephone. The President of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, Leslie Voltaire, also reportedly reassured him via a text that she would ask the police to accompany him. When contacted, neither Voltaire nor the various ministries involved in the security operation responded to our questions.
Almost isolated from the world, Port-au-Prince relies on a handful of helicopters shuttling from Cap-Haïtien in the north. Here a U.N. helicopter in march 2025. (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
“They can’t be serious. You can’t ask the police to secure a red zone. It’s like a war zone,” Coulanges said. “The police cannot secure this place. It’s not even possible with tanks. It’s total suicide.”
Three months after the tragedy, when Forbidden Stories visited in March 2025, Port-au-Prince was a capital cut off from the world. No commercial flights have landed at Port-au-Prince-Toussaint Louverture Airport since bullets pierced the cockpit of an airliner. Although domestic flights resumed in June 2025, the situation remains extremely precarious. To get to and from the city, only a few helicopters shuttle back and forth from Cap-Haïtien in the north of the island, allowing U.N. officials, in particular, to travel around the country.
Health services regularly targeted in Haiti
In Port-au-Prince, gangs are advancing inexorably. Two streets behind the General Hospital, which was set on fire by armed men in February 2025, is the Elohim Medical Complex. This is where Miracle received first aid before being transferred to Cuba. Its director, Dr. Berthony François, was kidnapped for three days in January 2024 in Village de Dieu. Reached by phone, he denounced “the numerous attacks against hospitals.” “This is an apolitical place,” he said. “When gang members get hurt, where do they go for treatment? To the hospital.”
Last March, we had arranged to meet with François. But we were never able to get there. On the day of the meeting, in the late morning, his clinic was assaulted by gangs. “The hospital was attacked,” François repeated three times on the phone, in shock. To save their lives, the medical teams had to flee on foot, leaving a patient on the operating table.
Medical staff are treating an increasing number of gunshot victims. Here, bullets removed during surgeries are kept at the Hospital of Peace, March 2025. (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Dr. Duckenson Lorthé Blema, formerly Haiti’s Minister of Public Health and Population, dismissed after the attack on Hôpital Général (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
At the end of June 2025, rumors were circulating about Izo’s health. Several Haitian media outlets claimed that he had been wounded by a kamikaze drone, but this information could not be verified. Since March 2025, the Haitian police have been using armed drones manufactured by U.S. security companies. According to a report by the National Human Rights Defense Network, they have been used to kill at least 300 gang members.
On the gangs’ side, it could be “only a matter of time” before the use of weaponized drones increases. “We have seen this in Mexico, where some cartels have been using commercial drones modified to drop homemade explosive devices for the past five to six years. These are imprecise bombings, but they are widely used in certain conflicts,” said Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, a researcher with the NGO Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. “The expertise is not very difficult to obtain, and Haitian gangs have been using drones for surveillance for several years. The risk of them carrying out attacks is very high.”
Still from the Unité Village de Dieu video by rap group Atis Mafia, led by gang boss Izo. (Credit: Capture d’écran / Forbidden Stories)
Last March, after an initial assault by kamikaze drones on his men, the spokesperson for the Viv Ansanm coalition, gang leader Barbecue, issued a warning in a short video. “Explosive drones were sent to assassinate me … I can now use explosive drones to target anyone in the country,” he said. These threats have gone unheeded, so far.
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