Gaël Turine, journalist
The weapons used today are weapons of war, so the injuries caused are much more serious than a few years ago, and that, for me, means one thing: Port-au-Prince has become a veritable war zone.

Gael Turine spent 10 days
in the MSF hospital in Tabarre
in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

On the second day, there was a group of five teenage girls who arrived with wounds from a mass shooting in Pétionville, a small town just above Port-au-Prince. And among these five victims, there was a 15-year-old who turned out to become the main character of our film.

So Lovely, like the four other young women who were injured during this massacre, were present in a voodoo temple and a gang came, who suspected the voodoo priest of having certain acquaintances with a rival armed group, and they opened fire into the crowd in a totally deliberate, but also senseless, way.

This hospital specializes
in trauma care:
gunshot wounds, stab wounds,
road accidents…

I had received a lot of information before leaving and then Haiti is a country that I know well, so I have regular information that comes from there. Nevertheless, it is not enough to be prepared for what we have witnessed, that is to say the continuous arrival of people with gunshot wounds throughout the day.

People get shot by stray bullets, or they are intentionally targeted while going to a market, getting on a motorcycle taxi, or leaving their homes, going to school, coming back from work, going to see a relative... So, all the situations that cause a person to be in a street in Port-au-Prince are dangerous.

What is striking are the detours that have to be made to avoid the confrontation zones. It is the vigilance of everyone at all times in relation to a situation that seems suspicious. There is a palpable tension. If we observe the way Haitians walk in the street, look around them, we feel the tension. Because indeed, over a space of 200 to 300 meters, we go from a quiet street to an area which can be a battleground between rival gangs.

It takes a lot, a lot of courage to keep living there. They don't have much choice, but to hold on, you need a lot of courage.

HAITI: DOCTORS AT THE HEART OF CHAOS
CAN BE SEEN ON ARTE.TV