In two recordings shared with AyiboPost by a station manager, we can hear music playing and a male voice introducing himself as “Zo level” on the microphone praising gang leader Jeff Canaan and encouraging the Mirebalaisians to return home
After burning down several radio and television stations in Port-au-Prince, gangs took control of Panic FM radio in Mirebalais, where for almost a week they have been broadcasting music and programs glorifying their criminal acts.
Rodnel Romelus had to flee Mirebalais in March 2025 with his family following gang attacks launched in March 2025 which pushed more than 50,000 people to flee their homes in the center department.
Contacted by AyiboPost, the young man confides that the music and messages from the gangs, broadcast since the station was taken over, only aggravate the trauma he experienced with his family.
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“I don’t like this music. They deeply disturb me when I listen to them on Panic FM radio,” he expresses.
Gangs were already using social media to broadcast their videos and messages as well as to recruit new members.
Dodythe Saintilus, a young student from Mirebalais, who also fled gang violence, is worried about “the negative influence that this content can have on young people from remote areas”.
For Gotson Pierre, journalist and editor of the online agency Alterpresse, the take over of the radio is a new development “given the strong symbolism attached to such an institution”.
In two recordings shared with AyiboPost by a station manager, we can hear music playing and a male voice introducing himself as “Zo level” on the microphone praising gang leader Jeff Canaan and encouraging the Mirebalaisians to return home.
The head of the station created in 2006 suspended its broadcasting on the internet, but it continues to broadcast intermittently on the frequency 97.5 fm since the gangs took its control on Wednesday April 23, 2025.
“It’s very worrying,” a station manager who had to flee the area told AyiboPost.
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“We contacted CONATEL [the national telecommunications council] to help us regain control of the frequency. They promised us to act. But we are still waiting for them,” he told AyiboPost, adding that the station has been broadcasting intermittently, broadcasting songs produced by gang leaders since it was taken over.
For the manager, the station was not targeted because of a committed editorial line – because, according to him, it did not broadcast programs of a political nature – but for its “positioning in the city center and the availability of energy facilitating broadcasting”.
CONATEL did not respond to a request for comment from AyiboPost.
Panic FM broadcast its programs in five departments of the country, notably the North, Artibonite and the Center.
“Beyond the abuses and clashes on the ground, the gangs are now waging an information war,” communications expert Yvens Rumbold analyzes to AyiboPost.
“One of the main functions of a media in the current context of the country is to document the daily attacks perpetrated by armed gangs. Consequently, wanting to control a media becomes strategic for them,” analyzes Rumbold.
Since February 2024, members of the “Viv Ansanm” gang coalition have attacked at least four radio stations in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, murdered two journalists, injured seven others and kidnapped another for ransom, according to a press release from the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) published in March 2025.
Read more: This is how the gangs looted several P-au-P media outlets
In 2024, Haiti found itself at the top of the list of countries where murderers of journalists are likely to go unpunished, ahead of Israel, according to a ranking of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global Impunity Index
A second station was also targeted in Mirebalais.
Contacted by AyiboPost, Absolu Marc Haendel, journalist and CEO of Radio Télé Haendel (RTH), said he learned of the vandalization followed by the burning by gangs of his station created in 2023.
For the professional, the RTH was targeted because it denounced “the plot aimed at delivering the town of Mirebalais to bandits”.
Handel says he is concerned by the turns of events in his commune. The man describes as “violent” the messages and music heard on Panic FM radio since its capture by armed bandits who are trying to “manipulate the people who listen to it. »
For several years, armed gangs have made online platforms their preferred territory to spread fear and glorify their atrocities.
Beyond the abuses and clashes on the ground, the gangs are now waging an information war
-Yvens Rumbold
Gang leaders, like Johnson André known as Izo, Wilson Joseph known as Lanmo san jou and Jeff Larose known as Jeff gwo lwa, accumulate thousands of views on these online platforms thanks to their music glorifying their crimes or videos filmed in their strongholds.
In 2022, the Twitter account that belonged to Jimmy Cherizier known as Barbecue was banned by the platform.
In 2023, it was the turn of the YouTube account of Izo, another notorious gang leader, to be deleted after waves of online protest that occurred shortly after the latter received a plaque from the platform for having reached the 100,000 subscriber mark.
The gang leader used his account to spread violent messages, accompanied by threats against the population and rival gangs.
However, these deletions did not curb the presence of gangs on social networks.
For Gotson Pierre, the takeover of Panic FM by the gangs constitutes both a violation of the rights to information, freedom of expression and the right to the press in Haiti.
According to a study published in 2022 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Faculty of Human Sciences of the State University of Haiti (UEH), radio constitutes the most accessible means of communication to Haitians.
According to researchers, this distribution channel helps overcome obstacles linked to illiteracy, the isolation of certain neighborhoods and insufficient access to electricity.
Alongside the media, public infrastructure is regularly targeted by gangs during their attacks.
Over the past three years, their actions have pushed dozens of public and private institutions to relocate, particularly in downtown Port-au-Prince.
For Gotson Pierre, the takeover of Panic FM by the gangs constitutes both a violation of the rights to information, freedom of expression and the right to the press in Haiti.
A dynamic which, for Yvens Rumbold, reflects a “shift in the legitimacy of the State towards these armed groups, in addition to their presence in the field of communication”.
For the specialist, this dynamic illustrates the gradual taking of control of the narrative of violence for the benefit of armed groups.
“Sometimes, when the police announce operations, nothing follows. Conversely, gangs announce their actions and then release videos to prove that they carried them out as announced.”
Rumbold insists on the need for the State to regain the trust of the population through its positions. Which, for him, constitutes an essential element for the success of the fight against insecurity in the country.
By: Wethzer Piercin
Cover | Photo of a man holding a weapon. (Source : Unknown) with a radio in the background and two fingers turning a knob. (Source : Freepik)
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