Haiti kidnappers 400 Mawozo demand $1m each for 17 hostages

FBI agents help Haitian authorities hunt for 12 adults and five children linked to Christian Aid Ministries

A demonstrator injured during the nationwide strike. Reuters

A woman sells pineapple in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during protests about the rising cost of phone services and a growing wave of kidnappings. The protests come days after the abduction of a group of American and Canadian missionaries. Reuters

Youths play soccer next to businesses that are closed due to a general strike in Port-au-Prince. AP

Street vendors selling plastic bags wait for customers during the strike. AP

Pressure is growing to free the missionaries. AP

A protester shouts about the rising costs of phone services. Reuters

A firefighter puts out a smoldering road block set up by protesters in Port-au-Prince. AP

Tyres burn following a call for a general strike by several professional associations and businesses. AFP

Tyres burn in the street during the general strike. AFP

A street is nearly deserted in Port-au-Prince. AFP

Police remove a road block set up by protesters. AP

A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of 17 American and Canadian missionaries has demanded $17 million for their return, the country's justice minister said on Tuesday.

The group, named 400 Mawozo, abducted the 16 Americans and one Canadian from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries outside of the capital Port-au-Prince at the weekend. Five children are among the hostages.

Justice Minister Liszt Quitel told The Wall Street Journal that the FBI and Haitian police are in contact with the kidnappers and are seeking the release of the missionaries, but negotiations could take weeks.

Ransoms have been paid for kidnapped missionaries in the past.

Five priests and two nuns, including two French citizens, were abducted in April in Croix-des-Bouquets and were released later that month. Mr Quitel told the Journal that a ransom was paid for the release of two of those priests.

A man who claimed to be 400 Mawozo's leader had told a local radio station that the gang was responsible for those abductions.

The missing missionaries have highlighted a problem that has plagued Haiti — the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation — for years.

Kidnappings have become more brash and commonplace in recent months amid a growing political and economic crisis, with at least 628 incidents in the first nine months of 2021 alone, a report by the Haitian non-profit Centre for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, or CARDH, showed.

This is compared with 234 kidnappings for all of last year.

Compounding the country's economic woes, protest strikes have shut businesses, schools and public transport in Haiti and unions and other groups have vowed to continue the shutdown in response to worsening crime.

FBI agents and other US officials are helping local authorities hunt for the 17 abductees, who were kidnapped on Saturday during a trip to an orphanage in the largest reported kidnapping in years.

Haiti is still recovering from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Haiti in August, killing more than 2,200 people.

Gangs have been accused of kidnapping schoolchildren, doctors, police officers, bus passengers and others as they grow more powerful and demand ransoms ranging from a couple of hundred to millions of dollars.

On Monday, the usually chaotic streets of the capital Port-au-Prince remained quiet and largely empty.

“We are calling on authorities to take action,” said Jean-Louis Abaki, a moto taxi driver who joined the strike to decry killings and kidnappings.

Mr Abaki said if Prime Minister Ariel Henry and National Police Chief Leon Charles want to stay in power, “they have to give the population a chance at security”.