A Florida couple visiting the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince are being held for ransom after being kidnapped, according to their family.
Jean Dickens Toussaint and Abigail Toussaint were reportedly abducted on a bus on 18 March while visiting the stricken nation to see ailing relatives and attend a community festival.
“The US department of state and our embassies and consulates abroad have no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas,” the federal agency said.
The Toussaints’ kidnappers demanded $6,000 for the couple’s release, a relative told ABC Miami, but then they upped the ransom to $200,000 each after the money was paid. “We don’t have that type of money,” Jean Dickens Toussaint’s sister, Nikese Toussaint, said.
“We were very worried when they said they were going, we told them not to go but they wanted to go,” she added.
A family friend who met the couple at the airport to escort them was also kidnapped, a niece of the couple told ABC Miami.
“They stopped the bus at a stop and they asked for the Americans on the bus and their escorts to come off the bus and then they took them,” she said.
The US State Department told Insider that they are "aware" of the situation, adding that when an American is missing "we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can." While kidnapping in Haiti is an ongoing problem, kidnappers typically only target locals. That changed in October 2021 when a Haitian gang kidnapped a group of mostly American Christian missionaries, demanding $1 million in ransom.
The kidnappers released five of those hostages over the course of the following two months. The remaining 12 managed to sneak past guards and escape to safety. A US federal grand jury indicted the leader of the gang, identified as Joly Germine, last year, according to NBC News.
"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," Desormes said, per the outlet.
According to WPLG, Desormes said the kidnappers initially requested $6,000. But once the family paid it, the kidnappers increased their demand to "$200,000 per person." Desormes started a petition last week, calling for people to spread the word about the couple's plight. As of Saturday, more than 3,000 people had signed it.
"My Family and I have been stressing and doing everything we can to bring them back home and now we need you and your voice to not only sign the petition but to spread the word and to talk to your local representatives to do something to rescue them as they did before for the 17 missionaries who were kidnapped in Haiti and returned unharmed," she wrote in the petition.
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