Abigail and Jean-Dickens Toussaint, were kidnapped on March 18 while on vacation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Family members say they’re now being held on increasing ransom demands that the family cannot meet.
After allegedly paying the $6,000 requested, the family says kidnappers changed their demand to $200,000 per hostage, reports CNN.
Christie Desormes, who says she’s the couple’s niece, has started an online petition calling for help and pressuring U.S. officials to step in, as the family does not “have that type of money.”
As Desormes tells it, her aunt and uncle were in Haiti visiting family, but their bus was stopped while driving through the nation’s capital. “They stopped the bus at a stop and then asked for Americans to get off the bus and their escorts off the bus, and then they took them,” she told CNN affiliate WPLG.
The couple, from Tamarac, Fla., are both 33 years old and share a child who turns 2 years old next week, according to Desormes.
The U.S. State Department is “aware of reports of two U.S. citizens missing in Haiti,” a spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.
“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can,” the spokesperson said. “We have nothing further to share at this time.”
In 2021, the State Department and the FBI had been part of a successful effort that freed all 17 of those kidnapped while on a missionary trip to Haiti, reported NPR.
The Haitian gang which captured the missionaries was demanding a million dollars for each hostage, but it’s unclear how much, if any, of the demands were met in that case.
Haiti’s illegal gang activity has grown more prominent since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, according to Reuters.
A large portion of the capital and the countryside is now considered lawless territory, with regular gun fights between police and gangs that have left hundreds dead and thousands others displaced from their homes.