In Haiti, daily life continues to be marked by gang crime. A Frenchman was kidnapped on Friday in the capital. These crimes have sadly become the risk to which the nearly three million inhabitants of Port-au-Prince are exposed.
With our correspondent in Port-au-Prince, Amelie Baron
Very few elements have been made public on the kidnapping of this French citizen in Port-au-Prince. Haitian police said the abduction took place Friday in the Debussy neighborhood, a residential area in the west of the city.
As with every crime of this kind, the authorities and relatives remain discreet about the investigations and possible negotiations because it is a question of not endangering the victim. Some cases make headlines like lately, the kidnappings of several doctors. Faced with the kidnapping of one of their pediatricians, one of the main hospitals in Port-au-Prince had closed its doors.
If Haitians are the first and main victims of kidnappings, foreign nationals are also targeted by the gangs. For three weeks now, eight young Turkish citizens have been hostages of the powerful criminal gang 400 Mawozo.
And faced with a police who seem unable to stem the grip of the gangs, the inhabitants of the city reduce their movements to the strict minimum. Some, among the minority who can afford it, have decided to go into legal exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic. The less fortunate dare to flee by sea, most often stopped and returned to Haiti by the US Coast Guard.