DOCTORS at hospitals treating earthquake victims in Haiti’s capital have been kidnapped, forcing one of the institutions to declare a two-day shutdown in protest, officials said on Thursday.

The abductions of the doctors on Tuesday and Wednesday dealt a major blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in Port-au-Prince.

Dr Workens Alexandre is among the country’s few orthopaedic surgeons, desperately needed for quake victims with broken limbs.

An official at the Bernard Mevs Hospital said 45 of the 48 quake victims being treated at the facility needed orthopaedic surgery.

Gangs in the rough Martissant neighbourhood on the capital’s outskirts had announced a truce earlier in the week to allow aid efforts to pass through to the south-western part of Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday’s earthquake.

It was unclear if those gangs were involved in the latest abductions, but the founder of the “Dash” network of affordable hospitals, Dr Ronald La Roche, said criminals have engaged in kidnappings outside the neighbourhood.

The Tuesday kidnapping of another doctor, an obstetrician who was on his way to perform an emergency caesarean delivery, occurred in Petionville, considered one of the safer and wealthier areas of the capital.

The doctor’s patient and her child both died due to the delay in treatment.

Kidnappers have contacted the families of both doctors, but there is no information on ransom demands.

Haiti’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake has devastated the country, including by damaging the only medical oxygen plan in the south-east.

At least 2,189 people were killed and 12,268 were injured in the earthquake, according to officials, and more than 100,000 homes were destroyed.

The earthquake was trailed by a tropical storm that brought heavy rain and strong winds at the beginning of the week.