What we know about the fate of American nurse and her child kidnapped in Haiti
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Five days after an American nurse and her daughter were kidnapped in Haiti, the U.S. State Department would not say who might be holding them or whether the abductors had made any demands to secure their release.
Alix Dorsainvil and her child were seized Thursday by armed men on the grounds of the Christian-ministry-run health clinic where she worked as a community nurse near Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince. Dorsainvil, from New Hampshire, is the wife of the director and founder of El Roi, a faith-focused humanitarian organization.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a briefing on Monday afternoon that the "the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority." However, he declined to answers questions about any efforts being made to secure Dorsainvil and her daughter's release. "We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities. We’ll continue to work with them and our U.S. government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer," Miller said.
Top U.S. diplomat Haiti needs foreign troops to help with a gang-related crisis
Haiti spinning out of control: On every metric from gangs to kidnappings, migration to murder
Jean-Junior Joseph, a senior advisor to Ariel Henry, Haiti's prime minister, said in a WhatsApp message that the matter was being handled by Haitian National Police. "PNH is working on it," Joseph said, referring to the nation's law enforcement agency by its French acronym. He had no further details to share.
Dorsainvil and her child went missing on the same day that the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency embassy personnel and their families to evacuate Haiti due to a deteriorating security situation that has seen gangs take control of large parts of Port-au-Prince. It also advised all U.S. citizens in Haiti to leave “as soon as possible” because of elevated risks from "kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor health care infrastructure."
Who is abducted nurse Alix Dorsainvil?
According to an El Roi promotional video published a few years ago, Dorsainvil moved to Haiti after her husband Sandro Dorsainvil invited her to become a nurse at his organization's facility near Port-au-Prince.
They married in 2021.
"Haitians are such a resilient people. They're full of joy and life and love," she said in the video, published three years ago. Cornerstone Christian Academy in Wakefield, New Hampshire, posted an online message after her abduction saying she was a graduate of the private school, and her maiden name was "Comeau."
Sandro Dorsainvil grew up in Haiti and at one point attended Lustre Christian High School in Montana, according to El Roi. He then went on to attend Liberty University, a private Baptist college in Virginia.
No information about the kidnapped child was immediately available.
Why is the security situation so bad in Haiti?
Haiti was once one of the wealthiest places in the Americas, according to the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. But its history and development have been blighted by colonization, by predatory foreign interventions, natural disasters, disease epidemics, nonfunctioning political systems, organized crime and corruption.
It is now one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
Over the last few years, a political crisis spurred by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 has spilled over into a dramatically deteriorating security picture. Gangs have exploited this. The United Nations estimates they now control about 80% of Port-au-Prince and conduct hundreds of kidnappings each month.
What is being done to help Haiti?
Haiti and its partners have been calling for an international force to help combat the gang violence.
Kenya said this week it was willing to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti as part of this effort, which it could lead.
However, no other country has stepped forward to offer to serve as the lead nation for any such force, partly out of concern that past interventions have not led to material improvements for Haitians, who are also wary of the U.N. peacekeepers who have been blamed for helping to spread a cholera epidemic in 2010 that killed more than 9,000 people. U.N. personnel in Haiti have also been implicated in rape and sexual abuse scandals in the country.
More Haiti and related coverage
International troops are urgently needed to stabilize Haiti's spiraling humanitarian and security crisis, the U.S.'s top diplomat said at a Caribbean summit, echoing calls by the United Nations and Haiti's government.
Haitian musician Jean Jean-Pierre says most people he knows who live in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, avoid leaving their homes unless they need food or other essential supplies. The reason? Violence. Murder. Gangs.
What do Brittney Griner in Russia, Danny Fenster in Myanmar and American hostages from Sudan to North Korea have in common? The controversial efforts of one man who's "a friend of the administration."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Haiti kidnapping: Fate of abducted American nurse and child unclear
