Headlines: a maternity hospital must close in Haiti, an armed gang stole its electric generator
A gang member, wearing a balaclava and holding a gun, poses for a photo in the Portail Leogane neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, September 16, 2021. (Illustrative image) AP - Rodrigo Abd
Text by: Stefanie Schüler Follow
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The maternity hospital in question is the Sainte-Croix hospital in Léogâne, a town located some 40 kilometers southwest of the Haitian capital. “
On Wednesday, a gang from the Martissant neighborhood in Port-au-Prince seized the hospital truck. On board
: two drivers and the new
$38,000 generator recently purchased on credit –
and therefore not yet paid
,” reports the
Miami Herald
. “
Thursday, the two drivers were released. The gang members told them that if they wanted their truck and the generator, they should come back with the money
”.
Since then, “
nurses and doctors are forced to use the flashlights of their mobile phones to perform caesarean sections
”, because it is above all women who come to the Sainte-Croix hospital to give birth. “
We perform six to seven caesarean sections per night
,” explains obstetrician-gynecologist Pierre Wilson Romestil in the daily columns. Last month alone, more than 100 women gave birth in this hospital in Léogâne.
Never seen.
This affluence is explained by the fact that gangs block access to Port-au-Prince.
"
We have become in a way the general hospital for all the women of the southern peninsula of Haiti
", underlines the director of Sainte-Croix.
But without electricity, the hospital has been forced to refuse any new admissions since Thursday and will have to close its doors.
"
Pregnant women and their babies are at risk of dying
", alarm the doctors.
And the
Miami Herald
concludes: “
Haiti has the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere.
And out of
1,000 births, 50 Haitian babies die, compared to 16 in the rest of the region
”.
Read also: In Haiti, two journalists murdered by a gang
Public holiday in the United States to commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King
The civil rights icon "
would certainly lament the state of the country today
," writes the
Los Angeles Times
: "
The persistence of police brutality that disproportionately targets African Americans and Congress's reluctance to remediate ;
state laws that attempt to limit the right to vote and the failure of Congress to guarantee that right for all.
Nor would King look away from the streets of our cities where mostly black homeless people, suffering from untreated illnesses, survive amidst immense wealth
.”
“
Racial inequalities still exist, and pointing them out –
along with their root causes – has caused something that might make us think of a rollback
,” notes the
Tulsa World
.
And the Oklahoma newspaper concludes: “
But Martin Luther King would call us never to give up
”.
In Colombia, the ELN, the last guerrilla still in activity, stands up to President Ivan Duque
El Espectador
reports that "
members of the guerrillas appeared this weekend in the streets of the department of Arauca, while at the same time the Head of State held a crisis meeting there and announced the deployment of 700
additional soldiers to guarantee the security of the civilian population
”. ELN guerrillas and dissidents from the former FARC guerrillas are fighting a bloody battle for this territory, which is one of the drug trafficking routes between Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.
Precisely, in Venezuela, the army also announced this Sunday the deployment of troops on the border with Colombia.
According to
Tal Cual
, we do not know the number of soldiers mobilized.
But we know that they were sent to the state of Apure, neighboring Arauca in Colombia, where the village of La Gabarra was invaded on Friday by 50 ELN guerrillas who took control of the place.
Local elected officials called on the government of Caracas for help.
In Peru, more than 5,900 women went missing in 2021
"
These are very worrying figures
", alarmed in the columns of the newspaper
Milenio
the deputy commissioner for women's rights: "
Especially since the majority of these disappearances concern girls and adolescents
".
The Peruvian authorities highlight the Covid-19 pandemic which would have aggravated the phenomenon.
On the contrary, feminist NGOs accuse the inaction of the police and the prosecutors, summarizes
Milenio
.
►
Also to listen:
In Peru, the worrying explosion of violence against women during the pandemic
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