HomeNewsBriefHaiti President Calls for Aid as Gang Kidnappings Surge
BRIEF

Haiti President Calls for Aid as Gang Kidnappings Surge

HAITI / 28 JAN 2021 BY PARKER ASMANN EN

The president of Haiti is urging citizens to work together with the Caribbean nation’s police force to help quell an alarming uptick in gang kidnappings for ransom, highlighting the state’s inability to weather the fallout from backing increasingly powerful criminal actors.

“I don’t have a problem carrying this weight on my back … but I need your help, I need the support of the population. I need a marriage with the police and the population to allow us today to grab the thugs by the neck," said President Jovenel Moïse in a live address January 25, recognizing the severity of the problem

The surprise call for help came just hours after the latest kidnapping case in the country. Earlier that day, a 10-year-old boy was snatched just outside the entrance to his school in the city of Carrefour, which sits to the southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. The boy was released later the same day, according to local newspaper Le Nouvelliste.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Haiti

That case is one part of a broader upsurge in kidnappings in Haiti. Authorities went from recording just 39 cases in 2019 to nearly 200 last year, Vice News reported, a more than 400 percent increase. Unofficially, however, Le Nouvelliste estimated that there were 160 kidnapping cases every month between January and August 2020 alone.

Amid economic hardship and ongoing political unrest, kidnapping in Haiti has gone from a crime that primarily targeted wealthy individuals to one where armed gangs now prey on everyone from schoolchildren to market vendors and even church leaders, according to the Miami Herald.

While kidnappers previously went to great lengths to hide their victims, they now often tell relatives where hostages are located because “they know that police won’t go into gang-controlled slums,” the Miami Herald reported.

InSight Crime Analysis

The outbreak of kidnappings in Haiti is directly related to the heavily armed gangs that operate with impunity due in large part to the government support provided to them in exchange for political favors.

This crisis has been months, if not years, in the making. In early 2020, Marie Yolène Gilles, a leading human rights activist at the Fondasyon Je Klere (FJKL) watchdog group, told the United Nations Security Council that “freedom of movement is not guaranteed” in Haiti.

“As armed-gang fiefdoms have become inaccessible to the police, the gangs have taken full control of the civilian population living in those areas and of those they have kidnapped,” Gilles said.

Across the entire country, Giles said more than 150 armed gangs are active. Some of them benefit from protection agreements brokered with government officials who, “in an attempt to survive politically, often rely on gangs and use gang-warfare strategies,” according to Giles.

Indeed, several human rights groups allege that the “G9 an Fanmi,” (G9 and Family), a gang alliance brokered last year between at least nine gangs in Port-au-Prince, has seemingly benefited from protection from President Moïse. The architect behind the alliance, Jimmy Chérizier, alias “Barbecue,” is a former Haitian police officer.

SEE ALSO: Is Haiti’s G9 Gang Alliance a Ticking Time Bomb?

The quid-pro-quo arrangement between the G9 and government officials -- whereby gangs keep violence down in areas they control while silencing the opposition and securing political support in exchange for state protection -- speaks to the longstanding ties between political actors and criminal leaders in the country.

State security forces have also been implicated in crimes against civilians. In some kidnapping cases, victims have reported being taken by individuals wearing police uniforms or driving police vehicles, according to the Miami Herald’s reporting.

“Crimes are being committed with the support, at least tacit, of the government, and the perpetrators enjoy official impunity,” Giles told the UN Security Council.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 31 DEC 2021

Prediction of the criminal dynamics for 2022 is even harder than most years, as it involves predicting the march of…

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 5 APR 2023

US officials may designate Mexican crime groups as terrorists, but this mischaracterizes the threat. …

ARGENTINA / 19 NOV 2021

Once the purview of Mexican drug cartels, the production of pro-gang songs that soothe the egos of powerful criminal overlords…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Receives Great Reception

27 MAY 2023

Several of InSight Crime’s most recent articles about Venezuela have been well received by regional media. Our article on Venezuela’s colectivos expanding beyond their political role to control access to…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report Continues

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Paraguay Election Coverage Draws Attention 

5 MAY 2023

InSight Crime looked at the various anti-organized crime policies proposed by the candidates in Paraguay’s presidential election, which was won on April 30 by Santiago Peña. Our pre-election coverage was cited…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in OAS, CARICOM Reports

28 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s work was cited nine times in a new report by the Organization of American States (OAS) titled “The Impact of Organized Crime on Women,…