Haiti – FLASH: Police officers and a group of citizens stop an ambulance and execute several patients
14/11/2024 09:43:53
 |
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) condemns in the strongest terms the death of several patients, executed on November 11, 2024, after an MSF ambulance carrying three young people with gunshot wounds was forced to stop by the Haitian police and members of a citizen self-defense brigade, about a hundred meters from the MSF hospital in Drouillard and forced the ambulance to transfer to a public hospital in Port-au-Prince.
After an attempted arrest and shots in the air, police escorted the ambulance to La Paix hospital. On site, law enforcement officers and members of the citizen brigade surrounded the ambulance, punctured the tires and gassed the MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them out. They then took the wounded a little further, outside the hospital grounds, where they shot dead at least two of them.
MSF staff in the ambulance were violently attacked, insulted, gassed, threatened with death and held against their will for more than four hours before being allowed to leave the scene. The MSF ambulance having been damaged, it was no longer roadworthy, and the entire team left in a second vehicle.
“This act of incredible violence, both for patients and for MSF medical staff, seriously calls into question MSF’s ability to be able to deliver essential care to the Haitian population, who are sorely lacking it,” declared Christophe Garnier, Head of Mission. “Our teams and our patients need a minimum of security to continue to provide medical care. »
We call on the authorities as well as all stakeholders to respect the right of access to medical care without discrimination or hindrance, and to guarantee the protection of patients, as well as respect for medical staff and healthcare structures in the face of increasing violence.
HL/ HaïtiLibre
World
