Overview:
Haitian journalists Milo Milfort and Johnson Sabin, alongside Belgian colleague Gaël Turine, gained the 2025 Franceinfo Golden Visa Award on the picture pageant in Perpignan, France, for his or her immersive digital reporting challenge “In Haiti, on the Coronary heart of Hell.” The work highlights each day life and resilience in gang-controlled Port-au-Prince, highlighting the important position of Haitian journalism regardless of lethal dangers.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haitian journalists Milo Milfort and Johnson Sabin, alongside Belgian colleague Gaël Turine, have obtained the 2025 Franceinfo Golden Visa for Digital Journalism. Their interactive report, “In Haiti, on the Coronary heart of Hell,” was printed final 12 months by La Libre Belgique newspaper.
The award was introduced Sept. 4 throughout the “Visa pour l’Picture” pageant in Perpignan, France, a prestigious stage that has lengthy showcased battle and humanitarian reporting from throughout the globe.
The reporting challenge combines images, testimony and multimedia storytelling to seize life inside gang-controlled neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, the place residents endure each day violence but additionally show resilience and dignity.
“This award represents recognition for helpful, high-quality work carried out underneath tough circumstances,” Milfort mentioned in an interview with The Haitian Instances after successful the award. “Gangs completely management among the areas we visited and can’t be entered with out their authorization.”
Journalism underneath fireplace in Haiti
In Haiti, documenting these tales is usually a matter of survival. Not less than 21 journalists have been killed between 2000 and 2022, in keeping with an Related Press (AP) report, together with 9 in 2022 alone—the deadliest 12 months in fashionable Haitian media historical past. In a rustic the place silence typically turns into a type of survival, journalists who persist in reporting danger threats, extortion or worse.
“This award has particular which means as a result of it was earned collectively, with Haitian journalists,” mentioned Turine, who has labored in Haiti since 2005. “It proves that regardless of the circumstances, significant, high-level work can emerge.”
Sabin additionally famous how personally affected he was by tales of displaced households. “Their power and dignity, regardless of worry and loss, left a profound mark on me,” he mentioned.
“This award represents recognition for helpful, high-quality work carried out underneath tough circumstances.”
Milo Milfort, Co-winner of Franceinfo’s 2025 Golden Visa
The Golden Visa award, which carries a prize of 8,000 euros or about $9,400 (USD), is among the most revered honors in battle journalism reporting, utilizing photographic expertise. Earlier winners embrace documenting Syria, Yemen, and different disaster zones.
For Milfort and Sabin, the award additionally demonstrates that Haitian journalism, typically overshadowed by violence and political instability, has the ability to form worldwide understanding.
“This growth exhibits the world that Haitian journalists can produce content material on the highest worldwide requirements, even underneath dire threats,” Milfort mentioned.
The trio’s reporting underscores the very important position of journalism in crises: to humanize statistics, expose abuses, and provides voice to these residing in worry. Their immersive challenge presents Haiti not solely by means of its violence but additionally by means of the perseverance of its folks — a steadiness not often achieved in worldwide protection.
Profiles of the awardees
Milfort, based mostly in Port-au-Prince, has spent greater than a decade reporting on Haiti’s most urgent points — from gang violence and kidnappings to governance failures and financial struggles. A former reporter for AyiboPost and founding father of the investigative outlet Enquet’Motion, Milfort is acknowledged for combining investigative rigor with compelling images.
He has been a contributor for worldwide retailers such because the Spanish information company EFE and Dominican Noticias SIN. He is thought amongst friends for his persistence in masking tales in a few of Haiti’s most harmful neighborhoods. His work has earned a number of regional awards, underscoring his position as one of many nation’s main investigative journalists.
“This award has particular which means as a result of it was earned collectively, with Haitian journalists. It proves that regardless of the circumstances, significant, high-level work can emerge.”
Gaël Turine, Co-winner of Franceinfo’s 2025 Golden Visa
Sabin, for his half, brings a novel visible eye to Haiti’s up to date challenges. A photographic journalist who has labored between Haiti and France, Sabin paperwork political realities and social transformations with sensitivity and depth.
The Haitian journalist’s work has been exhibited each domestically and internationally, and he’s presently making ready his second e book whereas creating new tasks on migration and resilience. His images — typically targeted on portraits and neighborhood life — affords not solely documentation of Haiti’s crises but additionally perception into its cultural vibrancy and other people’s willpower to maintain hope.
As for Belgian documentary photographer-journalist Gaël Turine, his expertise in Haiti has spanned practically 20 years. This time, he collaborated with the 2 Haitian professionals, including a world dimension to the group’s work.
“Their [Haitians] power and dignity, regardless of worry and loss, left a profound mark on me.”
Johnson Sabin, Co-winner of Franceinfo’s 2025 Golden Visa
Primarily based between Brussels and Paris, Turine is printed in a number of famend retailers, together with The New York Instances, Stern, and Le Figaro Journal, whereas additionally producing long-term tasks that led to books and exhibitions. His collaborations with Haitian journalists and photographers, together with coaching packages with the Haiti-based Fokal Foundation, have supported the expansion of native visible journalism.
Turine contributed his worldwide perspective, working intently with Milfort and Sabin to craft a digital narrative that hyperlinks Haiti’s realities to world audiences and ensures the nation’s tales are seen past the instant information cycle.
“Our collective strategy blends textual content, images and digital storytelling to not solely seize Haiti’s challenges, but additionally to affirm the important position of press freedom in a rustic the place silence has too typically been a survival technique,” Milfort mentioned.