On Monday, March 17, 2025, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced that four of its clearly marked vehicles were intentionally shot at in Port-au-Prince while its teams were evacuating the Turgeau Emergency Center in coordination with the authorities. As a precautionary measure, after violent street fighting moved closer to the center, the Emergency Center's activities were temporarily suspended since March 15. Before suspending operations, all patients at the Emergency Center were successfully transferred to other medical facilities.

MSF "strongly condemn this intentional shooting, in which 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," said Benoît Vasseur, MSF Head of Mission in Haiti. "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."

Since the end of February, the situation in Turgeau, where MSF runs a referral and emergency center, has deteriorated significantly. During the night of March 14-15, the violence escalated further. Armed groups moved within a few 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," explains Vasseur. "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 [...]"

This is the second time in less than four months that MSF has been forced to suspend activities at this health facility. At the end of November 2024, MSF suspended all its activities in Port-au-Prince following multiple attacks and repeated threats against medical personnel https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43676-haiti-flash-msf-forced-to-suspend-its-activities-in-the-metropolitan-area.html . Following dialogue with the authorities and assurances from all parties regarding the protection of MSF's medical mission, we have partially resumed our activities https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43839-haiti-health-medecins-sans-frontieres-partially-resumes-its-activities-in-port-au-prince.html , reopening the Turgeau hospital on January 20, 2025.

sEE also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43839-haiti-health-medecins-sans-frontieres-partially-resumes-its-activities-in-port-au-prince.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-43676-haiti-flash-msf-forced-to-suspend-its-activities-in-the-metropolitan-area.html

HL/ S HaitiLibre