Five Turkish citizens, still hostages of a Haitian gang which had kidnapped them at the beginning of May, when they had just entered Haiti on board a bus with seven other people, were released on Tuesday, announced Wednesday at the AFP a source close to the file.
The circumstances of this release have not been disclosed but the young men, aged 20 to 26, are in apparent good physical condition, according to information provided by the same person.
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About ten days ago, the three young Turkish women who were traveling with them had been released by their captors
"because they were sick"
, said Michaelle Durandis, representative of the Metro bus company.
On May 8, the group left by bus from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to Port-au-Prince.
The vehicle had been hijacked in Haiti, shortly after crossing the border, by one of the most powerful armed gangs in the country.
Twelve people were on board at the time: eight Turkish nationals, three Haitians and a Dominican.
The eight Turkish citizens are members of an educational and religious association present in Haiti since 2019 and which provides language courses and Muslim religious education, according to its website.
The two employees of the transport company, a Haitian hostess and the Dominican driver, had been released less than a week after the hijacking of the bus.
The two Haitian passengers were subsequently released by the gang, against the payment of a ransom in the amount not made public, according to the representative of the Metro company who was not able to provide the date of this release.
Haitian security forces are struggling to stem the grip of gangs on the capital and the country: for the month of May alone, at least 200 kidnappings have been recorded by the UN, crimes overwhelmingly committed in Port-au- Prince.
One of the most powerful gangs in Haiti, called "400 mawozo", has for several years already controlled the area where the Turkish nationals were kidnapped, located between the Dominican Republic and the Haitian capital.
