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

in the middle the escalation of violence in the countryincluding a deadly attack on one of MSF’s ambulances last week, the charity said it would suspend health services in Port-au-Prince “until further notice”.

Last Wednesday, police and vigilantes repeatedly stopped MSF vehicles in the city and threatened to rape and kill health workers, the group said.

MSF said police diverted an ambulance to a hospital, where “law enforcement officers and members of a self-defense group surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires and gassed MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them 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 aid groups still providing services in Haiti, which has been in crisis since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at home in 2021.

Thousands of Haitians have been killed in fighting 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 head 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 free quality medical services in the Caribbean nation and operates key services such as a trauma center and a burns clinic.

The United Nations estimated last month that only 24 percent of health facilities in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area remain open, while those outside the capital face an influx of displaced people, jeopardizing their ability to provide essential care.

The humanitarian crisis has been compounded by the closure of several hospitals and clinics due to increasing violence.

More than 700,000 people have been internally displaced, exacerbating already dire food insecurity, which has left an estimated 6,000 people plunged into starvation.

Residents take up arms against gangs

Fighting has 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 to fight an attempted overnight attack on an affluent hilltop suburb of Port-au-Prince.

Residents of Petion-Ville barricaded the streets as they mobilized, some with machetes and hammers in hand, to protect the neighborhood from another gang invasion.

Local newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported scenes of “bwa kale” in several parts of the capital, referring to a civil justice movement that began last April when residents lynched and set fire to suspected gang members in the absence of police presence .

Reuters reported at least 25 bodies in the Delmas, Canape Vert and Petion-Ville neighborhoods, where residents burned the bodies of suspected criminals under burning tires.

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

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

The Security Council will meet on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the escalation of violence.

The United States has banned all civilian flights to Haiti for a month after three planes approaching or departing from Port-au-Prince were hit by gunfire.

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