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| File Photo: People ride on a motorcycle near a burning barricade as Haitians mount a nationwide strike to protest a growing wave of kidnappings, days after the abduction of a group of missionaries, in Port-au-Prince, in Haiti October 18, 2021 |
A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of American and Canadian missionaries is asking for $17 million to release them, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing a Haitian official.
Justice Minister Liszt Quitel said the FBI and Haitian police are in contact with the kidnappers and seeking the release of the missionaries abducted over the weekend outside the capital Port-au-Prince by a gang called 400 Mawozo, the Journal reported.
Negotiations could take weeks, Quitel told the Journal.
The group of 16 Americans and 1 Canadian includes six women and five children. They were abducted in an area called Croix-des-Bouquets, about 8 miles (13 km) outside the capital, which is dominated by the 400 Mawozo gang.
Five priests and two nuns, including two French citizens, were abducted in April in Croix-des-Bouquets and were released later that month.
Quitel told the Journal that a ransom was paid for the release of two of those priests.
Kidnappings have become more brazen and commonplace in Haiti amid a growing political and economic crisis, with at least 628 incidents in the first nine months of 2021 alone, according to a report by the Haitian nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, or CARDH.
Haitians on Monday mounted a nationwide strike to protest gang crime and kidnappings, which have been on the rise for years and have worsened since the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
Shops were open again on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince and public transportation had starting circulating again. Transport sector leaders had pushed for the strike, in part because transport workers are frequent targets of gang kidnappings.
The FBI said in a statement on Monday that it is part of a U.S. government effort to get the Americans involved to safety.
Kidnappings in Haiti rarely involved foreigners.
The victims are usually middle-class Haitians who cannot afford bodyguards but can nonetheless put together a ransom by borrowing money from family or selling property.
The growing crisis in Haiti has also become a major issue for the United States. A wave of thousands of Haitian migrants arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last month, but many were deported to their home country shortly after.
REUTERS
