The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced on Tuesday, November 19, the suspension of its activities in the capital of Haiti, a country plunged into chaos, particularly after two of its patients were murdered on November 11. Following “Serious threats made against its staff by members of the Haitian police forces, MSF is forced to suspend its activities in Port-au-Prince until further notice”starting Wednesday, the NGO wrote in a press release.
He remembers that, on November 13, he had reported incidents two days earlier when one of his ambulances “had been attacked, leading to the execution of at least two patients and an attack on medical staff”. “In the following week, police officers repeatedly stopped MSF vehicles and directly threatened staff, including death and rape threats.”the press release further denounced. HAS “In Haiti and elsewhere, we are used to working in conditions of extreme insecurity, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend our projects”MSF added.
This poor Caribbean country has suffered from chronic political instability for decades. It must also face a new resurgence of violence from gangs, which control 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince. These armed groups, accused of numerous murders, rapes, looting and kidnappings for ransom, decided at the beginning of the year to join forces to overthrow Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Corpses of gang members burned in the street
On November 11, the new head of government, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, was sworn in. He promised “restore security” in the country a day after the dismissal of his predecessor Garry Conille by the Transitional Presidential Council, who heads the executive of this country deprived of a president since 2021 and elections since 2016.
On Tuesday, Haitian police announced that they had killed, with the support of Port-au-Prince residents, twenty-eight members of armed gangs, after the latter launched an offensive in the capital. Later, on a street in Pétion-Ville, bodies of people, described as members of these criminal gangs, were burned.
Last week, shootings at three US airline planes led the federal civil aviation regulator (FAA) to ban commercial flights between the United States and Haiti. Since then, Port-au-Prince airport has been closed.
Added to the violence is a catastrophic humanitarian situation that last week forced the displacement of more than 20,000 people, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), something never before seen with “such magnitude […] from August 2023 ». However, there is a multinational police support mission in Haiti. Supported by the UN and the United States, it is led by Kenya, which deployed just over 400 men there this summer.
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The UN representation in Haiti counted 1,233 murders between July and September, 45% of which were attributable to law enforcement forces and 47% to gangs, in a country of twelve million inhabitants.
