Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organization, said that two injured patients were killed in Haiti after police officers and vigilantes ambushed an ambulance.
The purported executions in Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital, are the most recent horrific act of violence in the catastrophic Caribbean nation, which has been beset by political unrest and gang conflict for years.
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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), another name for Doctors Without Borders, said that on Monday, police halted one of their ambulances when it was on its route to an MSF facility in the Haitian capital to take three young people who had been shot.
Following the truck’s diversion to a public hospital, police and vigilante group members “surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires, and tear-gassed MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them out,” according to a statement from the organization.
At least two of the three injured patients were slain as the police and vigilantes led them from the hospital premises, according to MSF.
After the patients were removed, staff members heard gunshots, but they were unable to identify the person who carried out the killings, MSF Head of Mission Christophe Garnier told reporters.
According to Garnier, the third patient was not murdered. According to him, MSF had no evidence to back up the suspicion that the patients were gang members held by the authorities. Garnier said that although it’s unknown whose police unit or organization the policemen were affiliated with, they were wearing safety gear.
Haitian police have been contacted by the news for comment.
MSF denounced the assault, claiming that its employees were detained against their will for almost four hours before being let to go after being threatened with death.
Garnier stated, “This act is a shocking display of violence, both for the patients and for MSF medical personnel, and it seriously calls into question MSF’s ability to continue delivering essential care to the Haitian people, which is in dire need.”
He noted that MSF is planning a high-level meeting with Haitian police to discuss the issue.
MSF has revealed the most recent fatal ambulance attack in Haiti. According to the group, armed individuals halted an MSF ambulance in December of last year, pulled a patient out, and murdered him.
The MSF study was released just two days after gunfire in Port-au-Prince damaged three US-based aircraft, causing the city’s international airport to close and flights to be suspended.
MSF’s activities in Haiti would probably be impacted by the flight bans, Garnier told the press, but the organization still has enough supplies to survive a few more weeks.
The shooting that hit one of the aircraft was attributed by Haiti’s transitional presidential council to armed gangs, who they said were trying “to isolate our country on the international stage.” The council swore in businesswoman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as prime minister, promising to bring democracy and security back to the nation, on the same day as the aircraft shootings.
