Gang blockades of fuel deliveries and abductions of tanker drivers have driven residents of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to desperate searches for gas and diesel. The disruptions follow a deadly earthquake, a presidential assassination and mass kidnappings.
The gangs have also kidnapped hundreds of Haitians, and the government appears unable, or unwilling, to take them on.
Officials at the Saint Damien hospital, the capital’s foremost pediatrics center, said it had only three days of fuel left to run generators that power ventilators and medical equipment. The hospital can run partly on solar power, but that doesn’t provide enough electricity for all its needs. The United Nations Children’s Fund warned Sunday that “hundreds of women and children who seek emergency care in health facilities are at risk of dying if solutions are not found to the fuel shortage prevailing in Haiti for weeks due to insecurity.”
UNICEF said it had secured a contract with a local provider to supply hospitals in and around Port-au-Prince with 10,000 gallons of fuel. “But due to insecurity, the provider eventually declared he could transport fuel neither in the Haitian capital, nor in other provinces ... because many truck drivers no longer accept to ply the roads crossing gang-controlled areas for fear of being kidnapped and their truck hijacked.
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