According to the nuns’ account, the men of the former police officer who became gang leader “entered the convent and also took over the hospital” according to Franceinfo. They broke down part of the walls before emptying the two buildings of beds and all medical equipment and setting them on fire. “The Sisters and the medical staff were not assaulted,” according to the same source.
Last September, Haitian police asked the nuns to leave the neighborhood and close their house. Law enforcement felt unable to protect them from the strength of the gangs, and in an area that is now considered the territory of the G-9 et fanmi (G-9 and the family), of which Barbecue is the leader.
The house of the Missionary Sisters of Charity was opened in 1979. Since then, thousands of Haitians have entered their walls to receive food aid, care, surgery or medical treatment. In fact, according to Fides, the hospital receives around 1,500 patients per year in free hospitalization and almost 30,000 patients per year in free outpatient clinics.
This attack reveals a worsening of the situation – if indeed it could get any worse. Because until then, even the gangs respected the Sisters of Charity and their essential mission to the population.
But according to a source “Barbecue has lost all rationality, all respect for the sisters and for the people, because he knows very well that it is the poorest people who benefit from the service of the sisters and who have benefited from it for all these years. years “.
It appears that greed was the motive for the attack. Sister Paësie, missionary in Haiti, who gave details of the tragedy, specifies that “the“The looted items are still sold at the market near Saint-Joseph.”
A multinational security support mission has been set up by the United Nations since last July, with the arrival of a first contingent of Kenyan police officers. El Salvador approved the sending of a military contingent at the beginning of October. But these forces seem very meager in the face of the terrible gangs which terrorize the Haitian capital.
