PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Eight people, including six nuns, were kidnapped in capital Port-au-Prince on Friday, according to the country’s association of religious orders, amid an ongoing upswing in abductions.
“(We) were saddened to learn that six nuns from the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anne, and others from the bus they were on, have been abducted,” the Haitian Religious Conference said in an internal memo.
An armed group kidnapped the women around 7 am (1300 GMT) as the nuns traveled to various schools where they work, it told media. However, it didn’t provide information on the other two kidnapping victims.
There has been no report yet if ransom has been demanded. Kidnappings — targeting both well-known and ordinary people — have been increasing for several weeks in Port-au-Prince and on certain country roads.
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Last week, a doctor and a justice of the peace were kidnapped before being released after ransoms were paid.
Such incidents come amid rampant gang violence in the poorest state in the Americas, whose political, economic and public health systems are in tatters.
The UN, in 2023 estimated that gangs controlled around 80 percent of the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
The United Nations Security Council agreed in October last year to send a multinational mission to Haiti, led by Kenya, to assist the Haitian police, though it could take months yet to arrive.
