PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — International medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) has announced the indefinite closure of its emergency clinic in the Turgeau neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, citing uncontrollable violence and worsening insecurity in the capital.
The decision, described by MSF as a “last resort,” comes after months of intense armed clashes between rival gangs that have made safe access to the area nearly impossible. The organization said the situation now poses a direct threat to the safety of its staff, patients, and medical operations.
“This closure is heartbreaking given the extreme suffering of people in Haiti,” said Benoît Vasseur, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti. “But a dead or injured doctor or nurse can do nothing for patients in need.”
The Turgeau Emergency Center had already been suspended since March 2025 following a violent attack on March 15, when clearly marked MSF vehicles traveling between the Turgeau site and the organization’s trauma hospital in Carrefour were fired upon at least 15 times. Although no one was injured, the incident underscored the escalating dangers faced by humanitarian workers operating in Haiti.
The clinic building itself has been repeatedly struck by stray bullets due to its proximity to active combat zones. MSF had relocated the facility to Turgeau in 2021 from the even more volatile Martissant neighborhood, hoping for improved safety conditions, a hope that has now been extinguished.
The shutdown delivers another blow to Haiti’s collapsing healthcare system, where gang control extends across roughly 90% of Port-au-Prince. Widespread violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of residents and left essential services on the brink of collapse.
A June 2025 United Nations assessment revealed that only 13% of Haiti’s 254 in-patient medical facilities are fully operational. In the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, just 5% of 93 assessed facilities remain functional. Clinics outside the capital are overwhelmed by an influx of internally displaced people seeking treatment, further stretching already limited resources.
With the closure of the Turgeau center, thousands of residents in Port-au-Prince’s most densely populated districts lose one of the few remaining accessible emergency care options, marking yet another setback in Haiti’s deepening humanitarian crisis.