After armed intruders dragged a patient from the hospital in Port-au-Prince and shot him dead a short distance away, Doctors Without Borders said Friday that it was stopping operations there.
The organization, known by its French initials, MSF, stated in a news release that they ” violently dragged him out of the hospital, executing him with a bullet to the head about 10 meters (33 feet) outside the hospital grounds.”
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The gangland-style assault that took place in the city of Port-au-Prince on Thursday afternoon was the second armed gang intrusion into the hospital in less than six months.
Since the death of president Jovenel Moise in July 2021, Haiti has been engulfed in a growing political and economic catastrophe, and gangs now control more than half of the nation.
Benoit Vasseur, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti stated, “faced with this unacceptable level of violence, we have no other choice than to temporarily suspend all our activities in Raoul Pierre Louis Hospital.”
Vasseur shared with AFP media that MSF “cannot guarantee the safety of our patients or our teams” and “cannot continue to work” at the hospital.
He continued, “It is sad, but there are times when we have no choice: A dead doctor does not treat anymore.”
A district west of Port-au-Prince called Carrefour is home to the hospital, which is close to gang-controlled neighborhoods.
Approximately 800,000 people won’t have access to free, high-quality emergency treatment after the hospital stops operating, according to Vasseur.
The NGO stated that it will continue to operate in other areas of Haiti.
Since more than three decades ago, MSF has offered free medical care to hundreds of thousands of residents of the poorest nation in the Americas.
Both the murder on Thursday and a related event in August 2022, according to Vasseur, were an “act of brutal retribution, which violates all humanitarian principles.”
Four police officers were being treated at a clinic on Wednesday for wounds sustained in an attack on a station in the nation’s north when they were taken there by gang members, according to authorities, who then executed them. Also slain were two other police officers.
