Nationwide strike as kidnappings soar

PORT-AU-PRINCE: A nationwide general strike emptied the streets of Haiti’s capital on Monday with organisers denouncing the rapidly disintegrating security situation highlighted by the kidnapping of American and Canadian missionaries at the weekend.

The kidnapping of 17 adults and children by one of Haiti’s brazen criminal gangs underlined the country’s troubles following the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in July, with lawlessness mounting in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation.

“It has been months since we appealed for help, and since we have had no security against kidnappings we have called for the population to suspend all activity,” the president of Haiti’s Association of Owners and Drivers, Changeux Mehu, said.

“The bandits are going too far. They kidnap, they rape women, they do whatever they want,” he said. “Enough.”

In Port-au-Prince, shops, schools and government buildings were shuttered on Monday, but schools were opened in several other towns around the country, local media said.

A few police vehicles circulated in the capital, sticking to the main roads, which were relatively quiet, although an AFP photographer reported a barricade of flaming tires in one street.

“It’s as if we weren’t living anymore,” said Germain Joce Salvador in the city centre. “You can’t go on every day hearing that a loved one or a friend has been kidnapped.”

Launched last week by business and professional groups in Port-au-Prince, the call for a strike took on additional resonance after the kidnapping on Saturday by an armed gang of 16 Americans and one Canadian.

The missionaries work for US-based Christian Aid Ministries, which said in a statement that the group, which includes five children, was abducted east of the capital while returning from visiting an orphanage.

“No one is safe in the country,” Mr Mehu said. “We pay our taxes to the state. In return what we ask is to have security, so that the country can function.”

Armed gangs, which have controlled the poorer neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince for years, have tightened their grip on the city and the surrounding areas, where kidnappings have surged. The assassination of president Jovenel Moise on July 7 plunged the country into further uncertainty.

“Nature abhors a vacuum, so gangs take advantage of it,” said Gedeon Jean, director of the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights.