Haiti’s Fontaine Hospital Center has been taken over by a heavily armed gang holding hundreds of women, children and newborns hostage, according to hospital director Jose Ulysse.
“We are in great difficulty,” Ulysse hurriedly told The Associated Press after pleading for help on social media.
The Port-au-Prince hospital is located in the Cité Soleil slum, where gang violence is common. But until now, the facility itself has largely been exempt from the violence that’s responsible for many of the patients the hospital treats.
Ulysse blamed Wednesday’s siege on the roughly 200-person Brooklyn neighborhood gang led by Gabriel Jean-Pierre, which is part of a violent coalition called G-Pep. How many people the gang may have removed from the hospital or why they have done so is unclear. G-Pep is reportedly known to kidnap people and collect ransom in order to finance gang activity.
Armed Haitian gang members stormed a different Port-au-Prince hospital in July and absconded with a man being treated for a gunshot wound. That incident reportedly prompted Doctors Without Borders to suspend operations at that medical facility.
Violence in Haiti claimed the life of the country’s president in 2021. A team of gunmen killed leader Jovenel Moïse, shot his wife and kidnapped three police officers in that assassination plot, which fueled chaos in the capital city. The hit on Moïse was believed to have been politically motivated.
With News Wire Services
