Haiti: an armed gang carries out mass kidnappings, including American citizens

Haitian policemen (illustrative image).

© RICARDO ARDUENGO / REUTERS

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Insecurity continues to rage in Haiti: this Saturday, October 16, one of the country's main gangs carried out mass kidnappings, including kidnapping around fifteen American citizens.

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With our correspondent in Port-aux-Princes,

The circumstances of this kidnapping which took place, Saturday October 16 at midday, are still unclear but given the area where it happened, the suspicions are already on the gang called "400 Mawozo" which controls, since several months, the region between the capital and the border with the Dominican Republic.

Barricades

It seems that the members of this armed band would have erected several barricades on the roads over which they have, on a daily basis, total control and they would therefore have hijacked several vehicles.

Therefore kidnapping between fifteen and seventeen American citizens, missionaries and their families, including several children, and also kidnapping a still unknown number of Haitian citizens.

Daily threat

The American authorities do not yet confirm this group kidnapping but say they have been informed that such information is circulating.

More than 650 cases of kidnappings for ransom have been recorded since the start of 2021, three times more than over the same period last year.

Kidnappings have become a daily threat in the country especially for people living in the Haitian capital where the vast majority of these crimes are committed.

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• Haiti

• Criminality

• United States