Thirty-eight people who were preparing to travel by minibus to southern Haiti were taken hostage on Friday June 10 by a gang in the capital Port-au-Prince, the president of an association told AFP. of drivers.
"Two buses had just been filled with passengers bound for Miragoâne
(a town located 100 km west of Port-au-Prince)
when the guys from Village de Dieu seized them
," said Méhu Changeux, leader of the Association of Owners and Drivers of Haiti (APCH), in allusion to the name of a Port-au-Prince shantytown serving as the headquarters of a powerful gang.
“Each bus had 18 people, in addition to the drivers,”
he added,
Read alsoHaiti sinks into permanent chaos
This group kidnapping comes as the grip of armed gangs on the Caribbean country increases without the police being able to stem this insecurity.
Since June 1, 2021, the authorities have lost control of the only road access that connects Port-au-Prince to the southern half of the country because, over the space of two kilometers, the national road is completely under the control of armed bands. .
It is on this axis, at the western exit of the Haitian capital, that the kidnapping of 38 people occurred.
For the month of May alone, at least 200 kidnappings have been recorded in Haiti by the UN, most of them in Port-au-Prince.