Port au Prince- 16 March 2025: Médecins Sans
Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) strongly condemns
the intentional opening of fire upon four of its vehicles
while they were seeking safety for their staff amid
escalating violence in Port au Prince, Haiti. The escalating
violence close to the Turgeau Emergency Centre has forced
MSF to suspend again its activities in the hospital on the
15th of March and evacuate its teams from the hospital as a
precautionary measure. During one of the evacuation
movements, the MSF identified convoy was repeatedly and
intentionally fired upon, despite prior coordination with
authorities. While fortunately no one was killed, our staff
suffered minor injuries.
“This attack serves as
stark reminder that no one is safe amidst the ongoing
violence between armed groups and law enforcement. Despite
our precautions, we have been targeted and this is
unacceptable. We urgently call on all parties for the
respect of medical staff, facilities and patients at all
times,” says Benoit Vasseur, Head of Mission for MSF in
Haiti.
Since end of February, the situation in
Turgeau, where MSF runs a Referral and Emergency Centre, has
worsened sharply. On March 12 alone, our Emergency Centre
treated 27 victims of violence, including women and
children, from the surrounding area. During the night of
March 14-15, the violence escalated further. Armed groups
moved within meters of the hospital, threatening to turn it
into a frontline. “We had to make the painful decision to
suspend activities at the MSF Turgeau Emergency Centre to
protect our staff and patients. Currently, it is impossible
to continue operations at the hospital, but we are committed
to reopening our facility as soon as the situation allows us
to do so safely,”says Benoit Vasseur.
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Before
suspending activities, MSF successfully referred all
patients from the Emergency Centre to other medical
facilities. Between February 24 and March 2, our teams at
the Turgeau Emergency Centre treated 314 patients. In
February 2025 alone, our teams conducted over 2,500 medical
consultations and more than 400 physiotherapy sessions at
the Turgeau Emergency Center.
This is the
second time in less than four months that MSF has been
forced to suspend operations at the health facility. On
November 22, 2024, MSF halted all activities in
Port-au-Prince following multiple attacks and repeated
threats against medical staff. After months of engagement
with authorities and assurances from all parties regarding
the protection of MSF’s medical mission, the organization
partially resumed operations in January, reopening the
Turgeau hospital on January 20,
2025.
However, the resurgence of violence
and the deliberate attack on our vehicles during this
evacuation make it clear that these assurances and
engagements with authorities have failed to translate into
real safety for our staff and patients.
Our MSF team
has been providing emergency medical care in Turgeau since
2021. MSF maintains multiple medical programs in other areas
of Port au Prince and Haiti, notably for maternal and
newborn care, severe burns, trauma and victims of sexual
violence. Continuing these vital medical services requires
clear guarantees about the security of our
movements.
MSF is an international, medical,
humanitarian organisation that delivers medical care to
people in need, regardless of their origin, religion, or
political affiliation. MSF has been working in Haiti for
over 30 years, offering general healthcare, trauma care,
burn wound care, maternity care, and care for survivors of
sexual
violence.
