AFP :
At least 15 people, including a journalist and an opposition activist, were killed in Haiti in overnight violence suspected to be revenge attacks after the death of a police officer, officials said Wednesday.
Photographs of reporter Diego Charles lying dead on the ground and of political activist Antoinette Duclair dead in her car circulated on Haitian social media.
“In reaction to the assassination of Guerby Geffrard (the police officer killed), his allies concocted this morning’s shootings which resulted in the death of 15 peaceful citizens,” national police chief Leon Charles told a press conference.
Charles said an investigation into the violence in the capital Port-au-Prince had been opened “to trace all the perpetrators and co-perpetrators of the crimes committed.”
Geffrard, spokesperson for a police union that is in open conflict with the police force, was shot hours before the shooting spree in the same city district.
Charles’ statements sparked criticism from journalists and civil rights organizations, who doubt their truth.
“To come out and simply say, ‘We know the double murder of Diego Charles and Antoinette Duclair came from this union,’ we think that is acting with great haste and above all great casualness,” said Marie Rosy August Ducena of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, a non-governmental organization.
Locals angered by the violence protested by dumping flaming tires in the road.
The brother of a famous Haitian singer was also among the victims of the shooting.
