“We are outraged and saddened and we call on the armed actors in the country to respect the medical mission,” said the organization’s coordinator Luis Romero.
The humanitarian action organization “Doctors Without Borders” has temporarily halted its activities in El Salvador after gang members attacked one of their ambulances early this Sunday.
Luis Romero, who coordinates the organization’s activities in the country, said MSF is still evaluating the armed attack and added that the organization’s activities have been temporarily suspended.
“All our medical activities will be suspended, but not canceled, until we can inquire about it and know that our interventions can be performed safely,” he said.
The attacked team was a doctor and a nursing assistant who are stable according to information from Romero.
The facts
An Doctors Without Borders ambulance entered a neighborhood in Ilopango, San Salvador this Sunday at about 3 a.m. to provide medical attention, but they were attacked with a firearm by gang members controlling the area.
“We are outraged and saddened and we call on the armed actors in the country to respect the medical mission. Our action is neutral, impartial and independent and we provide help to people during the hour of their greatest need, ”added Romero.
MSF’s mission is providing medical and humanitarian assistance amid the COVID-19 pandemic to densely populated communities near the capital, where public health services are difficult to reach due to the presence of gangs.
Despite a noticeable decrease in violence in recent years, El Salvador is under siege by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18, gangs of about 60,000 members spread across more than 600 rural cells.
These gangs, a phenomenon considered a legacy of the Civil War (1980-1992) and reinforced by the deportation of gang members from the United States, have opposed the security plans implemented in the last four governments.
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