PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 11 (Reuters) – Hospitals in Haiti’s Cite Soleil evacuated their patients and aid group MSF suspended its activities there on Monday as fighting between armed groups operating in the area that began a fortnight ago deteriorated over the weekend.
MSF (Doctors Without Borders in English) said hundreds of residents sought refuge in its hospital in the neighborhood – an impoverished part of the capital Port-au-Prince – where one of its security guards was shot by a stray bullet while inside the compound.
Another hospital in the area, Hopital Fontaine, told Reuters it evacuated newborns from its intensive care unit. MSF said it treated some patients who transferred from Fontaine, including pregnant women who gave birth overnight.
“Currently, not a single hospital is open in the area where the fighting is taking place,” it said in a statement, adding that while local medical needs were growing exponentially it could not protect its staff or patients in the midst of gunfire.
MSF said it had taken in more than 800 people who sought refuge, but as the situation worsened, it decided to suspend operations at the hospital until further notice.
Local business leaders had warned earlier that fighting in the area, near the capital’s port and just a few miles from its international airport, broke out between the Chen Mechen gang and its partners and other gangs who were until recently allies.
The groups had all been part of a broad alliance of hundreds of armed gangs across the capital known as Viv Ansanm.
(Reporting by Harold Isaac; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle)
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