Haiti faces new crisis after kidnapping of group of missionaries, mostly Americans

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Haiti’s fragile government faces a new crisis Sunday (17) after a group of missionaries and their relatives, mostly Americans, were kidnapped by an armed gang near Port-au-Prince on Saturday.

There was little official reaction in Haiti, and local police did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

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A Haitian security source told AFP news agency that the group of between 15 and 17 people, including children and, according to some accounts, a Canadian, was abducted while returning from a visit to an orphanage. An unknown number of Haitians was also kidnapped.

“We call for the release of the kidnapped people, whether they are U.S. citizens or of other nationalities,” said Gedeon Jean, director of the capital-based Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights. He added that the current situation is “detrimental to human dignity.”

The kidnapping occurred as the group returned from a visit to an orphanage some 30 kilometers east of Port-au-Prince, a Haitian security source told AFP.

Some members of the Ohio-based missionary organization were on their first trip to Haiti, the source said.

The missionaries were said to be in the hands of the “400 Mawozo” gang, which has been carrying out kidnappings and robberies in the area between Port-au-Prince and the border with the Dominican Republic, the source for months said.

The U.S. State Department did not offer details about the kidnapping. A spokesman told AFP only: “The well-being and safety of U.S. citizens abroad is one of our top priorities.” “We are aware of this information and have nothing to add at this time,” he stressed.

Usually, officials remain silent on kidnappings, given the extraordinary sensitivity of such situations.

KIDNAPPINGS INCREASE

The gang has hijacked several vehicles, including busloads, on the roads it controls, affecting both nationals and foreigners, whom it holds for ransom, often for sums exceeding a Haitian’s annual earnings.

“The police have proved incapable of confronting the gangs, which are becoming better organized and controlling more and more territory” around the capital and in provincial towns, Jean said.

The organization he leads recorded an alarming rise in kidnappings in Haiti: more than 600 in the first three months of 2021, a dramatic increase of 231 over the same period in 2020.

In April, ten people, including two French religious men, were kidnapped by the “400 Mawozo” gang in the same area. Released after 20 days in captivity, Catholic Father Michel Briand told AFP at the time that his group was “in a bad place, at a bad time”.

CRISIS AND INSECURITY

Haiti has been struggling with natural disasters and a deep political crisis that paralyzes its socio-economic development.

The July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise by an armed commando in his private residence further plunged the Caribbean country into uncertainty.

Then an earthquake on August 14 killed more than 2,200 people in the southwest of the country.

Gedeon Jean says the absence of a strong state leaves a vacuum that criminal gangs are attempting to fill, extending their control from some of the capital’s poorest districts to surrounding areas.