Doctors Without Borders Suspends Operations in Haiti’s Capital

A woman brings her child to a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Cité Soleil a densely populated commune of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 7, 2022. Richard Pierrin/AFP via Getty Images

Doctors Without Borders said it has suspended operations in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and the wider metropolitan area following alleged threats to staff by Haitian police officers.

In a Nov. 20 statement, the international charity, which provides medical care in more than 70 countries, said that the suspension will remain in effect “until further notice” or until the charity and its workers are assured unhindered “security and respect” from armed groups, “vigilante groups,” and law enforcement officers.

Doctors Without Borders said the suspension applies to all medical services aside from services for patients already hospitalized at its five medical facilities and its mobile clinics in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. Maternal health activities in Port-a-Piment in the south of the country will also continue as normal, the charity said.

According to the organization, Haitian police officers stopped their vehicles multiple times in the week following an attack on a Doctors Without Borders ambulance, which resulted in the deaths of two people and physical attacks on its staff.

“After an attempt to arrest the patients and firing shots in the air, the police escorted the ambulance to Hôpital La Paix,” the charity said in a Nov. 13 statement. “Once there, law enforcement officers and members of a self-defence group surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires, and tear-gassed [Doctors Without Borders] staff inside the vehicle to force them out. They then took the wounded patients a short distance away, outside the hospital grounds, where at least two of them were executed.”

Haitian law enforcement officials have also “directly threatened” the organization’s staff members with death and rape in the week since the attack, the organization said.

A spokesperson for Haiti’s national police declined to comment.

The charity said it has been forced to halt patient admissions and transfers to its five medical facilities in Haiti’s capital because of the direct targeting of its personnel and patients in Haiti.

The organization’s presence has grown in Haiti since a devastating earthquake in 2010. It is now one of the main providers of free health care in the Caribbean nation and offers an array of services for victims of trauma and violence.

“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,” Christophe Garnier, who leads the organization in Haiti, said.

“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.”

The security situation in Haiti has rapidly deteriorated amid a rise in armed gang violence, sexual assaults, home invasions, and murders following a 2021 earthquake and the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in the same year. A nationwide state of emergency was declared in September.

Doctors Without Borders said that, on average, it provides care to about 1,100 outpatients and 54 children with emergency conditions each week in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.

“We have been in Haiti for more than 30 years and this decision is taken with a heavy heart, as health care services have never been so limited for people in Haiti,” Garnier said.

Reuters contributed to this report.