Thousands of doctors, nurses and other health professionals across Haiti on Tuesday were on strike to protest a spike in gang-related kidnappings as supporters burned tires and blocked roads.
The three-day strike that began on Monday shut down public and private health institutions in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and beyond, with only emergency rooms accepting patients.
“We are living a catastrophic situation where no one is protected,” said Louis Gerald Gilles, a doctor who closed his private practice in the neighborhood of Delmas on Tuesday to protest the recent kidnappings of two doctors.
“No professional is protected. Today it could be a doctor, tomorrow they could enter the office of a lawyer or an architect,” he said.
Kidnappings in Haiti increased 180 percent in the past year, with 655 of them reported to police, said a report by the UN Security Council released in the middle of last month.
Authorities believe that the number is much higher as many kidnappings go unreported.
“No social group was spared; among the victims were laborers, traders, religious leaders, professors, medical doctors, journalists, human rights defenders and foreign citizens,” the report said.
The most recent kidnappings of two doctors spooked the staff at Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, where union workers gathered on Tuesday and said conditions had become increasingly dysfunctional since the July 7 killing of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.
They accused Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s administration of not releasing sorely needed funds to the Haitian Ministry of Health for basic services, adding that they were worried about the lack of security.
“They can walk in here, grab anyone and leave with no worry,” said Guerline Jean-Louis, a 44-year-old hospital janitor who joined the strike. “This is why we support the movement.”
Haitian Ministry of Health officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Some patients, including Mario Fleurimon, a 39-year-old primary-school teacher, were unaware of the strike.
He strode into a medical complex that was empty except for a lone security guard. While frustrated he was unable to see a doctor for his diabetes, he said he supported the strike.
“There should be a general rising up to fight the insecurity,” he said.
In a recent statement, the Haitian Medical Association demanded that the government push to have the doctors released without conditions and implement measures to “stop the wave of insecurity that strips us of our fundamental freedom to go freely about our lives.”
One of the doctors was released on Tuesday, although the conditions of his release were not immediately known.
The prime minister has pledged to crack down on the spike in gang violence and kidnappings, with the US and other countries pledging resources and training to help an understaffed, underfunded police force.
The strike by health professionals was scheduled to end yesterday.
Another strike by the Association of Owners and Drivers in Haiti was expected to start today to protest theft of vehicles in the community of Martissant, ground zero for warring gangs who have kidnapped or killed several civilians, many of them aboard public buses.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS