ST JOHN’S – The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) Friday called on the Haitian authorities “to deploy all the necessary resources to shed light” on the “worrying” disappearance of the Haitian photojournalist Vladjimir Legagneur.
“The ACM expresses its solidarity with the photographer’s family and the Haitian journalists who are mobilising for the Haitian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation on this issue,” the ACM said in a statement.
Earlier this week, the National Association of Haitian Media (ANMH) expressed concern at the silence of the police and judicial authorities following the disappearance Legagneur.
The ANMH said that he left for an assignment in Grand-Ravine, in the district of Martissant, on March 14, one of the areas where, in recent years, gang clashes have been particularly violent.
The ANMH said it was calling on the Director General of the National Police of Haiti and the Government Commissioner of the jurisdiction of Port-au-Prince “to make every effort to find Vladjimir Legagneur and reassure his family, his loved ones and his colleagues”.
The media group said that while many officials including Limond Toussaint, the Minister of Culture of Communication, have expressed some concern about the disappearance of the photo-journalist he has not been found.
The ANMH said that Toussaint’s statement that the police and judicial authorities “are hard at work “is the first official reaction of the government in this matter.
The spokesman for the National Police of Haiti (PNH), Frantz Lerebours, said the authorities have received no information regarding the journalist’s disappearance.
“In such cases, without a ransom demand, we fear a fatal outcome,” he said, adding “the situation is very worrying but we cannot presume of his death without having found his body.”
Earlier this week, hundreds of people including journalists took to the streets urging the authorities to continue the search for the 30-year-old photojournalist and his wife, Fleurette Guerrier, said she always stayed in contact with him whenever he went out on risky assignments. She said that when she called him and got no response hours after he had left the house March 14, she contacted police.
Legagneur worked for the newspaper Le Matin and online news agency LoopHaiti before becoming a freelancer for local media and non-governmental groups. (CMC)
