Port-au-Prince (Associated Press):
Haiti’s new Prime Minister Garry Conilles and Haiti’s police chief visited the capital’s largest hospital on Tuesday after Haitian authorities said they had recaptured the facility from militants over the weekend.
Haiti’s police chief, Normire Rameau, said at a press conference on Monday that police had taken control of Haiti’s National University Hospital, commonly known as the General Hospital, in Port-au-Prince on Sunday night after months of escalating attacks by militant groups.
Haitians “will wake up one morning to find that the operation is complete and the bandits have been thwarted and neutralized,” Rameau said at the news conference, without taking questions from the media. He was accompanied by Kenyan police officer Godfrey Otunge, who said the Kenyan police force, supported by the United Nations, would work closely with Haitian authorities and national and international partners committed to rebuilding Haiti.
Attacks by criminal groups have pushed Haiti’s health care system to the brink of collapse, and the escalating violence has led to a surge in seriously ill patients and a shortage of treatment resources.
Gangs control 80 percent of the capital and have committed acts of looting, arson and destruction of medical facilities and pharmacies.
Waterborne diseases
Haiti’s health system, already under strain before the violence, faces further challenges from the rainy season, which is likely to worsen the situation and increase the risk of water-borne diseases.
UNICEF reports that poor sanitary conditions in camps and makeshift settlements have increased the risk of diseases such as cholera, with more than 84,000 suspected cases across the country.
Besides the hospital, militants have seized police stations, attacked Haiti’s main international airport (which has been closed for about three months), and raided two of its largest prisons.
The UN migration agency reports that violence in Haiti has forced some 580,000 people to flee since March.