01 August 2023 , 06:54
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An American and her young daughter have been kidnapped and are being held on a $1 million ransom in Haiti, witnesses have said.
Alix Dorsainvil, a nurse for El Roi Haiti, and her daughter were taken on Thursday. The pair were working in a clinic when armed men burst in and seized her, pulling out a gun, according to witnesses. The age or name of her daughter has not been disclosed.
Some members of the community said the unidentified men asked for $1million in ransom, a standard practice of the gangs killing and sowing terror in Haiti's impoverished populace. Hundreds of kidnappings have occurred in the country this year alone, figures from the local nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights show.
"If they leave, everything (the aid group's programs) will shut down," local resident Jean Ronald said, “The money they are asking for, we don't have it.”
They were abducted from a Christian campus near Port au Prince (Elroi Haiti)The same day Alix and her daughter were taken, the US State Department advised Americans to avoid travel in Haiti and ordered nonemergency personnel to leave, citing widespread kidnappings that regularly target US citizens.
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Around 200 Haitians had marched in their nation's capital Monday to show their anger over an abduction that’s another example of the worsening gang violence that has overtaken much of Port-au-Prince.
Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders announced it was suspending services in one of its hospitals because some 20 armed men burst into an operating room and snatched a patient.
As the protesters walked through the area where Dorsainvil was taken, the streets were eerily quiet. The doors to the clinic where she worked were shut, the small brick building empty. Ronald and others in the area worried the latest kidnapping may mean the clinic won't reopen.
Students from the El Roi academy carry signs during a demonstration to demand the freedom of the woman and her daughter (AP)State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: "Obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority. We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities. We’ll continue to work with them and our US government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer."
Alix Dorsainvil of New Hampshire was working for El Roi Haiti, a nonprofit Christian ministry when she was kidnapped. In a video for the El Roi Haiti website, Alix Dorsainvil describes Haitians as “full of joy, and life and love” and people she was blessed to know.
Dorsainvil graduated from Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, which has a program to support nursing education in Haiti. Dorsainvil’s father, Steven Comeau, reached in New Hampshire, said he could not talk.
In a blog post Monday, El Roi Haiti said Alix Dorsainvil fell in love with Haiti's people on a visit after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It said the organization was working with authorities in both countries to free her and her daughter.
It added: "Please continue to pray with us for the protection and freedom of Alix and her daughter. As our hearts break for this situation, we also continue to pray for the country and people of Haiti and for freedom from the suffering they endure daily."