Doctors Without Borders forced to evacuate hospital in Haiti’s capital as gang violence ramps up

After a gruelling 24 hours of treating gunshot wound patients and sheltering hundreds of residents, all while trying to avoid stray bullets, Doctors Without Borders has shut down its hospital in one of Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighbourhoods.

“It’s a hard decision,” Davina Hayles, the aid group’s head of mission in Haiti, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “It’s not easy to leave knowing that there will still be patients coming to the doors, and that we can’t be there.”

Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), evacuated its hospital in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil neighbourhood overnight on Sunday as rival gang factions exchanged outside.

They weren’t the only ones on the run. A new wave of gang violence in Haiti’s capital forced hundreds to flee their homes over the weekend, leaving families scattered along the road to the country’s main airport.

‘We can’t keep them safe anymore’

Gangs have overtaken more than 90 per cent of Port-au-Prince since the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 at his home. 

Haiti has not had a president since the assassination. In an interview on Monday, Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix  Didier Fils-Aimé said it was clear the country’s insecurity would not  allow for elections in August as planned.

Hayles says the fighting reached a fever pitch over the weekend. 

Over the course of just 12 hours, she says, staff treated more than 50 people with gunshot wounds. Every time they opened the doors for a new patient, she says people desperate for shelter would flood in.

“At one point we had over 800 people inside the hospital trying to find shelter — a lot of women and children mostly,” she said.

“A lot of MSF staff live in the area, so they were coming in with all their families, with all the kids, with their neighbours. They didn’t know where to go.”

On top of that, she says, the hospital was also tending to pregnant women and newborn babies who had been evacuated from the maternity ward at another hospital. 

It was late Sunday night, she says, when MSF made the call to throw in the towel. 

“Our project co-ordinator just said this is untenable,” she said. “We can’t keep them safe anymore. There’s too many stray bullets.”

‘The health system has completely collapsed’

Hayles says the hospital has transferred all its patients to other health-care facilities by ambulance, and has put up MSF staff and their families in a safe house.

As for the others sheltering in the hospital, she says MSF waited until things had quieted down somewhat overnight and arranged transportation to a nearby roundabout, where people could more easily find transit to safety.

“At one point, the fighting came so nearby that the minute we opened the doors, people were scared and they started running out themselves by foot towards that roundabout,” Hayles said. “It was very, very intense.”

She says she’s worried that people impacted by the violence in the neighbourhood will now have nowhere to turn. 

In a report late last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross said 70 per cent of health-care facilities in Port-au-Prince had shut down. Just last year, MSF permanently shut down its emergency centre in the city’s Turgeau centre, citing security concerns. 

“The health system has completely collapsed in Haiti,” Hayles said. “In Port-au-Prince, you have a few health centres and hospitals that are privately run, but most people can’t afford them. They’re way too expensive.”

The renewed ⁠violence in Port-au-Prince comes after the last members of a Kenyan-led mission in Haiti left the country as part of a restructuring ⁠of a ⁠UN-backed force mandated to help restore security. The mission has been beset by delays, lack of funds and personnel, and allegations of sexual abuse. 

The new plan aims to ​deploy some 5,500 new troops ⁠in Haiti by the end of summer, but it is unclear where those troops will come from or who will fund their operations. Haiti’s government has meanwhile hired a U.S. private military company.

Hayles says MSF is planning to return to Cité Soleil as soon as it’s safe to do so.  She says they left a small staff behind in the hospital, to keep an eye on things and report back. 

“They can still hear gunshots quite near to the hospital,” she said.