A French medical charity that is the only life-saving option for many Haitians at a time when escalating gang violence has shuttered hospitals and health clinics and sent pharmacies up in smoke said Tuesday it is suspending all services in metropolitan Port-au-Prince after a series of attacks and threats by Haitian police.

Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said that over the past week Haiti National Police forces have stopped their vehicles several times and threatened staff members with rape and death.

The suspension of operations means critical trauma care will now be nearly nonexistent in Port-au-Prince, with only one remaining hospital in the capital offering anything close to such care, leaving the country is an even more dire situation.

As a result of the decision, the French charity’s two main centers will no longer accept patients, leaving Haitians with a loss of over 120 beds and the capacity to treat the massive influx of trauma cases happening amid an alarming rise in gang violence.

The charity says that the attacks by Haitian police forces came after the organization went public last week about police officers shooting two of its patients after stopping one of its ambulances and physically attacking its staff. The Nov. 11 incident, which also involved members of a citizens’ vigilante group, has been strongly condemned by both the Canadian and U.S. embassies in Port-au-Prince.

“We accept working in conditions of insecurity, but when even law enforcement becomes a direct threat, we have no choice but to suspend admissions of patients in Port-au-Prince until the conditions are met for us to resume,” said Christophe Garnier, the charity’s head of mission in Haiti.

Lionel Lazarre, a spokesman with the Haiti National Police, said he can’t comment on the allegations or the charity’s decision because “we don’t know if they have written to the police on this.”

The French charity has been working in Haiti for more than 30 years and has been on the front lines of multiple disasters, including back-to-back hurricanes in 2008, a malnutrition crisis in the mountains of the southeast and the deadly cholera epidemic two years later. Charity doctors were among the first to respond to the waterborne-disease after it was confirmed 10 months after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, and their treatment centers were sometimes the only available care in the country’s rural areas.

In recent years, the charity has opened a trauma hospital to care for an epidemic of head injuries that has accompanied the rise of motor bicycles, along with a burn center and maternity hospital in the south. Nowadays with many hospitals in the capital, including the largest public facility, unsafe for staff to access, the charity has been the only place Haitians with gunshot wounds or with limited funds could seek care.

“Every day that we cannot resume activities is a tragedy, as we are one of the few providers of a wide range of medical services who have remained open during this extremely difficult year,” said Garnier. “However, we can no longer continue operating in an environment where our staff is at risk of being attacked, raped or even killed.”

In a statement, the charity claimed there were four incidents involving police forces that occurred after Nov. 11:

—On Nov. 12, two of the charity’s ambulances were stopped by officers of the Haitian National Police’s Brigade de Recherche et D’Intervention, who threatened to kill staffers in the future.

—On Saturday in Delmas 33, one of its drivers was verbally assaulted by plainclothes police officers who warned of future attacks on the charity’s ambulances.

—On Sunday shortly before midnight, another charity ambulance transporting a patient was stopped near boulevard Toussaint Louverture by a SWAT team that threatened to kill the patient on the spot. After intense negotiations, the ambulance was allowed to continue its journey to the charity’s hospital in Tabarre.

—On Monday, in Carrefour Rita, a Haitian National Police vehicle driven by a plainclothes policeman armed with a pistol stopped a charity vehicle taking staff to their workplace. He threatened the staff members, saying that next week police forces would start executing and burning staff, patients and ambulances.

“There have also been attacks on multiple occasions on (charity) ambulances and personnel by armed vigilantes, including on 11 November,” the charity said.

The allegations of brute police force have raised serious concerns about the behavior of Haitian cops, who are coming under increased scrutiny by human rights groups and foreign embassies as a number of alleged extrajudicial killings get caught on video.

A source familiar with the situation told the Miami Herald that the allegations of extrajudicial police killings by Haitians has also been a source of concern among the ranks of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission and is one of the reasons the foreign force’s 416 security personnel has been reluctant to join police in anti-gang operations.

Prior to the deployment of the mission, police officers were issued warnings by Haiti’s outgoing police chief, Frantz Elbé, about the need to respect human rights.

Increased violence on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince after gangs attempted to attack the post neighborhood of Pétion-Ville also has Haitians on edge. On Monday, the World Bank relocated staff from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haïtien with the help of helicopters leased from the neighboring Dominican Republic, and more foreign staffers of aid organizations, as well as embassies, are expected to follow. Cap-Haïtien, which has an international airport, is the only way out of Haiti by air after the Federal Aviation Administration last week suspended all U.S.-based carrier and licensed aircraft from flying into Haitian air space after three U.S. jetliners were hit by gang gunfire.

Médecins Sans Frontières says it averages more than 1,100 patients a week on an outpatient basis, along with 54 children with emergency conditions, and more than 80 new survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

Patients hospitalized at its five medical facilities will continue to receive care, as well those serviced by its mobile clinics in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. The maternal health activities in the south of the country in Port-a-Piment, will also continue to operate, the charity said.

Garnier, who only recently took the reins of the Haiti operation, said the decision is being taken with “a heavy heart, as health care services have never been so limited for people in Haiti.

“We are not able to work safely in Port-au-Prince.”

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