“We are outraged and sad and call on the armed actors in the country to respect the medical mission,” said the organization’s coordinator Luis Romero.
The humanitarian action organization “Médecins Sans Frontières” temporarily suspended its activities in El Salvador after the gang attack on one of its ambulances this Sunday morning.
Luis Romero, who coordinates the organization’s activities in the country, said Doctors Without Borders is still evaluating the armed attack and added that the organization’s activities are temporarily suspended.
“All our medical activities are suspended, but not canceled, until we can investigate and know that our interventions can be carried out safely,” he said.
The attacked team was a doctor and a nursing assistant who are stable, according to information from Romero.
the facts
An ambulance of Médecins Sans Frontières entered a colony in Ilopango, San Salvador, at around three in the morning this Sunday, to provide medical attention, but they were attacked with a firearm by gangs that control the area. .
“We are outraged and sad and call on the armed actors in the country to respect the medical mission. Our action is neutral, impartial and independent and we provide help to people in times of greatest need,” Romero added.
The MSF mission offers medical and humanitarian assistance amid the COVID-19 pandemic in populated communities in the vicinity of the capital, where public health services are difficult to reach due to the presence of gangs.
Despite a significant drop in violence in recent years, El Salvador is besieged by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18, gangs that have about 60,000 members distributed in more than 600 cells nationwide.
These gangs, a phenomenon considered a legacy of the Civil War (1980-1992) and strengthened with the deportation of gangs from the United States, have resisted the security plans implemented in the last four administrations.
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