American on life support after botched robbery

Doctors in the United States have reported that an American man was clinging to life after he was shot during a botched robbery outside a bank in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital said that Dave Bompart, 50, of Columbus, Ohio, is still in critical condition after he was shot in the stomach last Tuesday afternoon.

His wife, Nicolle, told reporters that Bompart, who was building an orphanage in Haiti, had just withdrawn money to buy food for orphans when he was shot.

"It's extremely painful not to be able to talk to him," she said. "But he knows that I love him.

"There's nothing that's been left unsaid."

Mrs Bompart said at least one assailant approached her husband at the bank and opened fire.

She said he rushed to a nearby medical facility, and has been mostly sedated ever since.

Dr Nicholas Namias, a leading surgeon at the trauma centre at Memorial Hospital, said Bompart was "very, very sick".

Mrs Bompart said her Trinidad-born husband relocated to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

She said he had collaborated with the University of Miami's Project Medishare, a joint initiative with American and Haitian doctors, in providing comprehensive health and development services in Haiti.

- CMC