(Port-au-Prince) The 38 people abducted Friday in Port-au-Prince by a gang, as they prepared to travel in two minibuses to the south of Haiti, were released on Saturday, announced a union of transporters.
Posted at 7:44 p.m.
“The passengers who had been kidnapped were released and the two buses recovered on June 11,” the Association of Owners and Drivers of Haiti (APCH) said on Twitter.
The APCH does not specify whether a ransom was demanded and paid to the kidnappers.
The 36 passengers and two drivers were taken hostage on Friday morning by gang members from Village de Dieu, one of the capital’s slums.
Since 1er June 2021, the authorities lost control of the only road access that connects Port-au-Prince to the southern half of the country because, over the space of two kilometers, the national road is completely under the control of armed bands.
It is on this axis, at the western exit of the Haitian capital, that the kidnapping of 38 people took place.
President of the APCH, Méhu Changeux told AFP on Friday that his organization “always asks drivers not to use this road until the state has restored security”.
During the month of May, at least 200 kidnappings were recorded in Haiti by the UN, particularly in Port-au-Prince.