The Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning US citizens to stay out of Haiti amid an increase in violence that included the kidnapping of an American couple in Haiti last month.

“While we understand that there are strong ties between Haiti and South Florida, before traveling there one must consider the trauma and financial costs of being kidnapped not only to themselves, but also to their family and friends,” said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Liz Santamaria. this week, the Miami Herald reported.

According to the FBI field office in Miami, kidnappings are on the rise in Haiti with a 300% increase in the first three months of 2023 compared to 2022.

Haitian gangs have resorted to extreme measures with atrocities similar to those reported during the genocide in Rwanda, according to a Haitian doctor in an interview from his home in Port-au-Prince late last month.

DISAPPOINTED BY THE POLICE, HAITIAN VIGILANTS FIGHT THE SAME AGAINST GANGSTERS

Lawlessness, torture, civil war, and “The Purge” were used to describe what reality is like for people living on the western frontiers on the island of Hispaniola.

“The people of Haiti continue to suffer one of the worst human rights crises in decades and a major humanitarian emergency,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a recent report to the UN Security Council . “With the high number of fatalities and the increase in areas under the control of armed gangs, insecurity in the capital has reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict.”

GANG VIOLENCE IN HAITI LEAVES 187 DEAD IN 11 DAYS

The State Department is currently advising Americans not to travel to Haiti “due to kidnappings, crime and civil unrest.”

Two Americans, Jean Dickens Toussaint and his wife Abigail Toussaint, were kidnapped in Haiti last month when they traveled to Haiti to see sick relatives and attend a local festival.

The couple, who were held by a gang for ransom, were released a month later, and the conditions of the release are unknown.

US PARENTS ‘TOTALLY ABANDONED’ BY BIDEN’S IMMIGRATION POLICY BURN LOCKDOWN ON ADOPTED HAITIAN CHILDREN

A mob in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince beat and burned 13 suspected gang members to death with gasoline-soaked tires Monday after taking the men out of police custody at a traffic stop, they said. the police and the witnesses.

The horrific violence by the vigilantes underscored public anger at the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince, where criminal gangs have taken control of about 60 percent of the city since the killing on July 2021 of President Jovenel Moïse.

Six more burned bodies were deposited in a nearby neighborhood later Monday, with some witnesses saying they were killed by police and set on fire by residents.

The Haitian National Police said in a brief statement that officers from the city’s Canape Vert section stopped and searched a minibus for contraband early Monday, and had seized weapons from the suspects before they were “unfortunately lynched by members of the population”. The statement did not explain how members of the crowd were able to take control of the suspects.

Caitlin McFall of Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source link