Haiti | Doctors Without Borders suspends its activities in the Cité-Soleil district

(Port-au-Prince) The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced Friday, in a press release, temporarily suspending its activities in the disadvantaged town of Cité-Soleil, in the suburbs of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, in due to gang violence.

“We condemn all forms of obstruction and violence against medical aid, our patients and our staff members,” explains Thierry Goffeau, MSF head of mission in Haiti.

This hospital will remain closed “until the security conditions (are) not guaranteed”, specifies the press release.

Haiti has been, for months, under the rule of gangs whose hold has extended far beyond the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.

This Caribbean country is also facing the resurgence of heinous kidnappings: between five and ten people are kidnapped every day in Haiti, according to Haitian human rights organizations.

Open for more than a decade, the Cité-Soleil hospital center is dedicated to emergencies with the possibility of pediatric observation care.

“It is a painful decision to make, because here we receive injured victims of violence in need of urgent and vital care: with the interruption of activities, access will be drastically reduced while the needs are only increasing. “says Thierry Goffeau.

Following a previous wave of violence, services for severe burn victims had already had to be moved to another facility the organization runs in the Haitian capital.

Last August, MSF was forced to close, permanently this time, the hospital that the NGO had been operating for 15 years in the Martissant district, one of the most disadvantaged in Port-au-Prince.

This withdrawal then followed that of the police who had already abandoned the neighborhood police station in the face of gang violence, while several thousand citizens had had to flee their homes and banks and businesses had been looted by armed groups.

Several thousand people demonstrated peacefully on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince against this crime and against Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whose inaction against gangs they denounce.