Médecins Sans Frontières suspended operations at one of its major medical facilities in Port-au-Prince in March 2025 after gang members fired on MSF vehicles near the facility, making it impossible to safely transport patients, staff, and medical supplies. The suspension was one of the most significant operational setbacks the humanitarian medical organization had experienced in Haiti, removing a critical source of trauma care and emergency medicine from communities that had no alternative provider.
The attack on MSF vehicles was not the first security incident the organization had faced in Haiti, but its severity and the directness of the targeting crossed a threshold that MSF’s security protocols could not accommodate. The organization had long operated in extremely challenging environments globally, but the deliberate targeting of clearly marked humanitarian vehicles indicated a willingness by the attacking gang to disregard medical neutrality that the organization could not safely ignore.
The affected facility had been providing surgical care to victims of gang violence, emergency obstetric care for pregnant women, and general emergency medicine for a catchment population with no alternative healthcare access. Its suspension left thousands of people without any accessible emergency medical care, in communities where gang violence was generating a constant stream of serious injuries.
MSF called on the gang coalition and all armed actors to respect medical neutrality and ensure safe passage for humanitarian medical operations. They announced their suspension publicly to draw international attention to the consequences of attacks on humanitarian operations and to maintain pressure for the security improvements that would allow them to resume services. The October permanent closure of the facility — announced later in the year — would be one of the most devastating single losses of healthcare capacity in Haiti’s crisis.