Haiti – Page 2 – The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

This is very scary stuff. Haiti has been in ruins for a while. Their President was assassinated in 2021. The gang activity is that of the cartel rampant with kidnappings, murder, extortion. There is daily uprising and rioting against the government and the country is now battling a cholera outbreak.

Let’s hope and pray this couple is returned home safely to their families. I can’t imagine how traumatic this experience is.

It’s important to issue this warning when traveling to be extremely cautious of travel ban warnings. The risks are too great and most foreign countries don’t have the same manpower and resources to help mitigate crime.

CNN — Abigail and Jean-Dickens Toussaint, both 33, were kidnapped on March 18 around Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, according to a statement from their families provided to CNN.

“Please share this and get the word out as much as you can,” the statement says, hoping the two return safe “to their child and family.”

The couple went to Haiti to visit family and to attend a festival but were kidnapped on their bus ride from Port-au-Prince, according to a woman named Christie, claiming to be the victims’ niece.

“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,” she told CNN affiliate WPLG.

The kidnappers asked for $6,000 for the couple’s release, but after their family paid, they asked for more money, WPLG reports.

“Once we sent that money, they tried to up the price to $200,000 per person and we don’t have that type of money,” Christie told WPLG.

Jamaica Gleaner — PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – The United Nations issued an urgent appeal for increased humanitarian access and resources for Haiti, stating that the humanitarian situation across the French speaking CARICOM country continues to deteriorate “day by day”.

They said this was “due to a spiral of violence, emergencies related to protection, human rights and food insecurity as well as an epidemic of cholera.”

In a statement, following a two day mission, the acting Director of Operations and Advocacy Division of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Tareq Talahma said “we cannot let Haiti become a forgotten crisis.”

In 2019, protests and unrest in Haiti became a crisis. I traveled to the country to work with humanitarian group BENEFIT HAITI and during this time the country was in complete ruins with fierce protesting of then president, Jovenel Moïse.

Check out some footage:

In the early morning of 7 July 2021, Moïse was assassinated, and his wife Martine was injured during an attack on their private residence in Pétion-Ville. Claude Joseph took control of the country as acting prime minister following the assassination of Moïse.