Charity workers withdraw from Haiti’s capital after police threaten to rape and kill them

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will cease operations in the Haitian capital after its staff were threatened by police.

in the middle Violence is increasing in the countryLast week, including a deadly attack on one of MSF’s ambulances, the charity said it would suspend healthcare services in Port-au-Prince “until further notice”.

The group said last Wednesday police and vigilantes repeatedly stopped MSF vehicles in the city and threatened to rape and kill healthcare workers.

MSF said police directed an ambulance to the hospital, where “law enforcement and self-defense group members surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires and fired tear gas to force MSF staff inside the vehicle out.”

The three injured patients were then taken a short distance away and at least two were executed, the charity said.

MSF is one of the few international humanitarian groups still operating in Haiti, which has since fallen into crisis. President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home in 2021.

Thousands of Haitians were killed in clashes between gangs, security forces, police and vigilantes.

“We are used to working in conditions of extreme insecurity in Haiti and elsewhere, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend our projects,” said Christophe Garnier, MSF’s chief of mission in Haiti.

A spokesman for Haiti’s national police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MSF, which increased its presence in Haiti following the devastating earthquake in 2010, is one of the main providers of quality, free healthcare in the Caribbean country and runs essential services such as a trauma center and burns clinic.

The United Nations estimated last month that only 24 percent of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area’s health facilities remained open, while those outside the capital were facing an influx of displaced people jeopardizing their ability to provide basic care.

The humanitarian crisis has worsened with the closure of many hospitals and clinics due to increased violence.

More than 700,000 people have been internally displaced, exacerbating already serious food insecurity that has pushed nearly 6,000 people into famine-level hunger.

Neighborhood residents took up arms against gangs

Clashes have increased in recent weeks as armed gangs try to take control of the capital.

More than two dozen suspected gang members were killed Tuesday after residents joined police against an attempted overnight attack in a wealthy hillside suburb of Port-au-Prince.

Residents of Petion-Ville barricaded the streets, some wielding machetes and hammers, to protect the area from another gang invasion.

Local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported “bwa cabbage” scenes in various parts of the capital, referring to the civil vigilante movement that began in April last year when residents lynched suspected gang members and set them on fire in the absence of police.

Reuters reported at least 25 bodies in the Delmas, Canape Vert and Petion-Ville neighborhoods; here residents set fire to the bodies of suspected criminals under burning tires.

Since 2022, the Haitian government has called for international support to help its police fight gangs accused of mass sexual violence, ransom kidnapping, extortion, child recruitment and obstructing the flow of essential supplies.

The UN Security Council approved a support mission last October but has so far deployed only a small fraction of the promised personnel. Haitian leaders have pushed for it to be turned into a peacekeeping mission to secure more funding.

The Security Council will meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss the escalating violence.

The United States banned all civilian flights to Haiti for a month after three planes approaching or taking off from Port-au-Prince were shot down by gunfire.

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