On Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at 4:00 p.m., a severely wounded man was admitted to our Turgeau Emergency Centre, close to the centre of Port-au-Prince. The patient was in a critical condition, and the medical team decided to transfer him to another hospital where he could receive specialised care.

Around 5:30 p.m., a convoy of two ambulances left the Emergency Centre, for two patient transfers. A few metres outside the Centre however, a dozen armed individuals appeared from a backstreet and blocked the convoy. They beat on the hood of the ambulance and fired shots in the air. They looked inside the first ambulance and ordered the second ambulance to return to the Emergency Centre. They took the patient out of the first ambulance by force. They then beat him and shot him several times. When he was dead, they fled the scene.

"We can’t accept that our ambulances are attacked, and our patients are beaten and killed. To carry out our work, our medical facilities, our staff, and our patients must be respected," declares Benoît Vasseur, Head of Mission for MSF.

In order to analyze the causes of this attack and reassess the security risks weighing on the organization and its activities, MSF regrets to have to suspend its activities at the Turgeau Emergency Center which will remain closed for an indefinite period.

MSF continues to offer free, quality medical care in its other structures in the metropolis: at the Cité Soleil hospital, at the trauma and burns hospital at Tabarre 36 and at the "Pran Men" clinic. at Delmas 33 which supports survivors of sexual violence.

"Our mobile clinics will also continue their regular interventions in various sectors of the capital and in displaced persons camps. In the Southern Peninsula, our Port à Piment maternity hospital continues to welcome pregnant women, where more and more of them are coming to give birth."

HL/ HaitiLibre