MSF closes hospital in Haiti due to gang violence

• Patients and workers at its Cité Soleil hospital had been endangered.
• Gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti have skyrocketed.
• Some schools were also closed as the number of kidnappings increased.

Doctors Without Borders has announced that gang violence in Haiti‘s capital has prompted the temporary closure of its facility in Port-au-Prince.

It claimed that patients and workers at its Cité Soleil hospital had been endangered.

It claimed that Haitians seeking treatment had become collateral victims of fighting just meters from the hospital.

Since President Jovenel Mossé was assassinated in 2021, gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti have skyrocketed.

The Caribbean country has been experiencing a rising economic crisis.

The organization, generally known by its French name MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières), made the decision when heavily armed gangs increased their territory in Port-au-Prince and adjacent cities.

Some schools were also closed as the number of kidnappings increased.

Earlier this year, an MSF-supported public hospital south of the city was similarly closed when a patient was killed by a bullet as he exited the emergency room.

Cité Soleil, an underprivileged neighborhood on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital, today has only one private hospital and one MSF facility that is scaling back operations.

Vincent Harris, a medical adviser for the aid group, said: “We are living scenes of warfare just meters [yards] from the establishment.

“Our hospital has not been directly targeted but we have been a collateral victim of the fighting since the hospital found itself on the frontline.”

In a second interview with a local news affiliate, Mr. Gwynn stated that the broad agreement among American law experts is that a six-year-old “cannot form the requisite criminal intent to be guilty of an aggravated assault”.

Alexandre Marcou, field communication manager, said a youngster on oxygen died in a security room, where patients are moved for protection from shooting around the facility.

A 70-year-old man was also shot as he attempted to cross the street to the hospital.

After Mose’s death, Haiti has been headed by Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has failed to reign in the gangs who rule much of the capital.

Mr. Henry has consistently urged for the deployment of an international force to assist police in combating criminal groups.

So yet, no country has offered to head such a force, despite Mr. Henry’s assertion that it is critical to maintaining security so that long-delayed elections can take place.

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