PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The newly selected from Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille and Haiti’s police chief visited the country’s largest hospital on Tuesday, after authorities said they wrested control of the medical institution from armed gangs over the weekend.
Haitian police chief Normil Rameau said at a news conference Monday that police took control of the Haiti State University Hospital, known as General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, on Sunday night after months of Escalation of attacks by armed groups..
Haitians “will wake up one morning and find that the operation is over, the bandits detained and neutralized,” Normil said at the briefing, but did not answer questions from the media. He was accompanied by Kenyan officer Godfrey Otunge, who said the UN-backed Kenyan police contingent intends to work closely with the Haitian authorities, as well as local and international partners dedicated to the reconstruction of Haiti.
The green and white hospital was devastated by gangs, with beds stripped of their cots and ceiling fans on the floor. The interior of the building was littered with debris and lighting fixtures between hospital cubicles.
The walls of the hospital and nearby buildings were riddled with bullet holes, indicating fights between police and gangs in the neighborhood. The hospital is right in front of the national palace, which was the scene of several battles in the last five months.
Conille said the building looked like “a war zone.”
Council member Louis Gérald Gilles was also present at Tuesday’s visit and announced that the hospital should be in full service by February 2026. Conille said the hospital was serving about 1,500 people a day before the gang strangulation.
“This hospital is not for the rich, it is for the poor,” Conille said Tuesday. “These are people who need serious help and can’t go to a private doctor.”
Attacks by criminal groups have pushed Haiti’s health system on the brink of collapse and the escalation of violence has led to an increase in patients with serious illnesses and a shortage of resources to treat them.
The gangs have been looting, burning and destroying medical institutions and pharmacies in the capital, where they control up to 80% of the area.
Haiti’s health care system, already struggling before the violence, faces additional challenges due to the rainy season, which is likely to worsen conditions and increase the risk of waterborne diseases.
Poor hygiene conditions in camps and makeshift settlements have increased the risk of diseases such as cholera, with more than 84,000 suspected cases in the country, according to a UNICEF report.
In addition to the hospital, gunmen took over police stations, attacked the main international airport (which was closed for almost three months), and raided Haiti’s two largest prisons.
In April, a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Haiti told The Associated Press that Staff were forced to reduce the number of outpatients they see. 150 to 50 daily, and people lined up outside the hospital every day, risking being shot by gang members while waiting for medical attention.
According to a report by the UN migration agency, violence in Haiti has displaced almost 580,000 people since March.
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