Violence and threats by police force Doctors Without Borders to suspend activities in Port-au-Prince metropolitan area

Port-au-Prince – A series of threats by police forces against Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff have forced the organization to suspend its activities until further notice in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. Police officers have stopped Doctors Without Borders  vehicles multiple times and directly threatened Doctors Without Borders  staff members, including death and rape threats, in the week following an attack on an Doctors Without Borders ambulance that resulted in the execution of at least two patients and physical harm to our staff on 11 November. These repeated incidents have compelled the organisation to stop patient admissions and transfers to its five medical facilities in Haiti’s capital as of 20 November, as they clearly illustrate the direct targeting of our personnel and patients in Haiti.

“As Doctors Without Borders, we accept working in conditions of insecurity, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend admissions of patients in Port-au-Prince until the conditions are met for us to resume”, said Christophe Garnier, Doctors Without Borders head of mission in Haiti. “Every day that we cannot resume activities is a tragedy, as we are one of the few providers of a wide range of medical services who have remained open during this extremely difficult year. However, we can no longer continue operating in an environment where our staff is at risk of being attacked, raped or even killed!”

After the incident of 11 November, in only a week, Doctors Without Borders has faced the four following incidents, which left us with no choice but to suspend our activities in Port-au-Prince:

1. On 12 November, two Doctors Without Borders ambulances were stopped by officers of the Haitian National Police’s Brigade de Recherche et D’Intervention (BRI), who threatened to kill Doctors Without Borders staff in the near future.

• On 16 November, in Delmas 33, one of our drivers was verbally assaulted by plainclothes police officers who warned us of future attacks on our ambulances.

• On 17 November, shortly before midnight, another Doctors Without Borders ambulance transporting a patient was stopped near boulevard Toussaint Louverture by a SWAT team who threatened to kill the patient on the spot. After intense negotiations, the ambulance was allowed to continue its journey to the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Tabarre.

•  On 18 November, in Carrefour Rita, a Haitian National Police vehicle driven by a plainclothes policeman armed with a pistol stopped a Doctors Without Borders vehicle taking staff to the workplace. He threatened the Doctors Without Borders staff members onboard, saying that next week police forces would start executing and burning our staff, patients and ambulances.

There have also been attacks on multiple occasions on Doctors Without Borders ambulances and personnel by armed vigilantes, including on 11 November.

Doctors Without Borders provides care to everyone on the basis of medical needs alone. Each week on average in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, Doctors Without Borders provides care to more than 1,100 patients on an outpatient basis, 54 children with emergency conditions, and more than 80 new survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Doctors Without Borders is suspending all medical services except to already hospitalized patients at its five medical facilities and its mobile clinics in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, who will continue to be in Doctors Without Borders ’s care. Our maternal health activities in the south of the country, in Port-a-Piment will also continue.

“We have been in Haiti for more than 30 years and this decision is taken with a heavy heart, as healthcare services have never been so limited for people in Haiti. Many people will lose access to Doctors Without Borders services because we are not able to work safely in Port-au-Prince. We remain committed to people in Haiti but cannot resume admissions of new patients to our facilities in Port-au-Prince unless we are guaranteed unhindered security and respect for our medical and humanitarian mandate by armed groups, members of vigilante groups and law enforcement officers.” (PR)

Doctors Without Borders  is an international, medical, humanitarian organisation that delivers medical care to people in need, regardless of their origin, religion, or political affiliation. Doctors Without Borders  has been working in Haiti for over 30 years, offering general healthcare, trauma care, burn wound care, maternity care, and care for survivors of sexual violence.