(Adnkronos) – “Repeated threats and violence by police forces against staff and patients” have forced Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to temporarily suspend activities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The organization announced this, denouncing how in recent days, police officers have repeatedly stopped MSF vehicles and threatened staff members, after an MSF ambulance was attacked on 11 November, at least two patients on board were executed, and the team suffered physical injuries.
These repeated incidents, which “demonstrate how staff and patients are targets of attacks,” have forced MSF to stop admitting new patients and transferring them by ambulance to the five medical facilities the organization runs in Port-au-Prince, a statement said. MSF will continue to assist patients already admitted to its medical facilities and to manage mobile clinic activities, as well as maternal health activities in the south of the country, in Port-a-Piment.
“As MSF we agree to work in insecure conditions, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend the admission of new patients to our facilities in Port-au-Prince until the conditions are in place to resume,” said Christophe Garnier, MSF head of mission in Haiti.
“Every day that passes without activity is a tragedy, because we are among the few who have provided numerous medical services in this extremely difficult year – he says – However, we can no longer continue to operate in a context where our staff risk being attacked, assaulted or even killed”.
In a single week, following the 11 November incident, MSF suffered four further incidents. On 12 November, two MSF ambulances were stopped by agents of the Haitian National Police’s Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention (BRI), who threatened to kill MSF staff in the near future. On 16 November, in Delmas 33, an MSF driver was verbally assaulted by plainclothes police officers who threatened future attacks on ambulances.
On 17 November, shortly before midnight, another MSF ambulance carrying a patient was stopped near boulevard Toussaint Louverture by a police squad who threatened to kill the patient on board. After intense negotiations, the ambulance was allowed to continue on to the MSF hospital in Tabarre. On 18 November, in Carrefour Rita, a Haitian National Police vehicle driven by a plainclothes policeman armed with a pistol stopped an MSF vehicle that was accompanying staff to work. MSF staff members on board were threatened and told that the following week police forces would begin killing and setting fire to staff, patients and ambulances. In addition, there have also been several attacks on MSF ambulances and staff by armed vigilantes, including the one on 11 November.
MSF provides assistance to all based on medical need. In the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, it provides assistance to more than 1,100 patients with outpatient visits each week, manages 54 paediatric emergencies and more than 80 new survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
“We have been present in Haiti for more than 30 years and it is not easy to take this decision because health services have never been so scarce for the population. Many people will lose access to MSF services because we cannot work safely in Port-au-Prince. Our commitment to the people of Haiti continues, but at the moment we cannot accept new patients at our facilities in Port-au-Prince unless we are guaranteed safety and respect for our medical and humanitarian mandate without hindrance from armed groups and law enforcement,” concludes Garnier.
