Officials say two doctors at hospitals treating earthquake victims in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince have been abducted, forcing one of the institutions to declare a two-day closure in protest
LES CAYES, Haiti – Two doctors at hospitals treating earthquake victims in the Haitian capital have been abducted, forcing one of the institutions to declare a two-day closure in protest, officials said Thursday.
The kidnappings on Tuesday and Wednesday dealt a major blow to attempts to control criminal violence that have threatened disaster response efforts in Port-au-Prince.
Dr. Workens Alexander, who was confiscated, was one of the few orthopedic surgeons in the country, in desperate need of earthquake victims with broken limbs. A Bernard Mevs hospital official said 45 of the 48 earthquake victims treated at the facility needed orthopedic surgery.
Gangs in the Martissant neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital had announced a truce earlier in the week to allow relief efforts to move to the southwestern part of Haiti, which was hardest hit by the earthquake. Saturday.
It was unclear whether these gangs were involved in the latest kidnappings, but the founder of the DASH Affordable Hospital Network, Dr. Ronald La Roche, said the criminals have been involved in kidnappings far beyond Martissant.
The kidnapping on Tuesday of another doctor, an obstetrician who was going to perform an urgent cesarean section, took place in Petionville, long considered one of the safest and richest areas in the capital. The doctor’s patient and his son died due to the delay in treatment.
“We’re furious with these people,” La Roche said of the kidnappers. “They are responsible for the deaths of this woman and her son.”
Of the alleged truce with gangs to Martissant, he said, “We can’t depend on that.”
“We believe gangsters are becoming more and more daring,” said La Roche, whose network of eight hospitals and clinics were closed to non-urgent cases in protest of the kidnapping.
DASH hospitals are treating 27 earthquake victims, and they – and any emergency – will continue to receive care.
The kidnappers have contacted the families of the two doctors, but there is no information on the rescue demands.
Hospital official Bernard Mevs, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said the problem has become so serious that a program has been set up for doctors to stay in the rooms. the hospital two or three days to avoid the risk of travel.
The quake killed about 2,200 people and injured more than 12,000. The kidnappings in Port-al-Prince directly affect the transfer of patients from overwhelmed hospitals to the quake zone.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry, himself the former head of neurosurgery at Bernard Mevs Hospital, had already acknowledged that the government cannot depend on gang truce.
“I have already given orders that, in order to travel from Port-al-Príncipe to the south, security be provided on the Martissant route to the most affected areas,” he said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a group of 18 Colombian volunteer search and rescue workers had to be escorted out of the earthquake-stricken city of Jeremie under police protection after rumors spread that they had been involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7.
This murder, which is still unsolved, is suspected to have been carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries.
Colombian rescuers had only arrived a day earlier. Local media reported that a member of Jeremie’s town hall went to a radio station and urged people to pick up the Colombian team, whose members had patches on their uniforms in the colors of the flag of the country. The rescuers took refuge in a civil defense office.
They were later taken to the local airport under police protection, said Wadson Montisino Cledanon, head of the Jeremie civil protection office.
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This story has been edited to correct the spelling of the Prime Minister’s last name.