Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Tabarre Hospital in Port-au-Prince does not look as you expect. It is a collection of shipping containers and single-storey modular units, connected by gravel pathways along which two pet peacocks strut, surrounded by barbed-wire fencing.

The facility has an air of impermanence to it. That is deliberate. Doctors Without Borders, the nonprofit that runs the place, had always hoped that, at some point, it would not be needed in Haiti.

But that day looks a long way off. The country’s health system has almost completely collapsed. Tabarre is one of the few trauma hospitals left open in Haiti’s capital.

Port-au-Prince has turned into a combat zone. Armed groups have seized power in much of the country, and more than 5,600 people were killed last year, according to the United Nations.

The mechanical cough of automatic gunfire is now a regular sound in the streets of the capital.

Those armed groups are currently fighting government forces. They are winning. They control up to 90 percent of Haiti’s capital, and they have joined together to form an alliance called Viv Ansanm, which translates to “Live Together”.

Police and community-led self-defence groups have been pushed into small pockets of territory. Haiti’s interim government, meanwhile, is mired in accusations of infighting and corruption. The country has not held a federal election since 2016.

Trapped in the middle of the uncertainty and violence is a desperate, traumatised civilian population. The armed groups are accused of using rape as a weapon of war, maiming civilians and forcing residents from their homes en masse.

More than 1 million people in Haiti are currently displaced. And about half the population is going hungry.

Amid the crisis, hospital after hospital has been forced to close its doors. The reasons are multiple. It is difficult to get medical supplies and equipment into the capital, for starters: Armed groups control all of the routes in and out of Port-au-Prince.

It is also hard for medical staff to get to work. Travelling through the many areas controlled by armed groups is dangerous. Some health professionals have left the country altogether.

And hospitals themselves have come under attack.