Americans Kidnapped in Haiti Could be Held For Months While Facing Horrible Conditions, ‘Very Limited’ Space

Nearly a week after an American nurse and her child were abducted in Haiti, efforts continue for their safe retrieval but some experts say the process could take up to several months, all while the two are likely being confined to limited space under extremely difficult conditions. 

Alix Dorsainvil was doing charity work with her young child when they were kidnapped from charity organization El Roi Haiti’s facilities in Port au Prince, according to El Roi Haiti’s website. 

Witnesses told The Associated Press that Dorsainvil was working in the small brick clinic when armed men burst in and seized her. The nurse, originally from New Hampshire, is also married to the organization’s founder.  

In a statement Monday,  El Roi said they “continue to work diligently with authorities and partners in the United States and Haiti to secure their freedom” and that “many people are laboring for their return.”

Dorsainvil’s kidnapping comes amid crumbling conditions in the country which have led to the rise of violent gangs that have all but seized the impoverished nation. 

Hundreds of kidnappings have occurred in the country this year alone, figures from the local nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights show. Almost all are in a bid to secure a hefty ransom making foreign national a bigger target.  

The kidnappings are “part and parcel of the violence inflicted on the country, particularly in the capital and on offense by gangs under an extremely weak government that has not fully failed, but lacks legitimacy as well as coercive power,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow in the foreign policy program at Brookings Institution, said. 

Felbab-Brown said there is likely an effort to negotiate release that is currently taking place but that process could take up to two months, as it did with over a dozen Christian missionary hostages who were abducted by Haitian gangs in 2021.  

“Even though for the victim obviously, the desire is to get it over as soon as possible, but not trying to rush to the deal has also been a good strategy.” she said, adding that taking time is not necessarily a sign that talks are ineffective or failing.

Keeping negotiations going may ensure more time for intelligence if at any point a military rescue operation may need to be considered, she said. 

With unreliable electricity, scarce medical care, and a lack of clean water leading to cholera in the country, the conditions the nurse and her child are living under may be “pretty rough,” Felbab-Brown said. 

The gangs operate in neighborhoods where people, including gang members, live in shacks made out of brick and tin with no air conditioning in extremely hot temperatures, she said. 

“So even though people have not been brutally tortured, frequently in captivity the conditions are very very rough and people have often been confined to limited space along with other hostages. It's not a good place to be held hostage,” she said. 

She added that anytime there is a hostage situation, there are very serious concerns to be had about physical and mental trauma, and in this case concerns are heightened due to a small baby also being involved. 

But Felbab-Brown said she is hopeful about their safe retrieval as U.S hostage negotiation teams are some of the best in the world and there is a lot of support and assistance to the family in how to negotiate.

The same day Dorsainvil and her daughter were taken, the State Department advised Americans to avoid travel in Haiti and ordered nonemergency personnel to leave, citing widespread kidnappings that regularly target U.S. citizens.

In a statement Monday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority. We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities. We’ll continue to work with them and our US government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer.” 

Around 200 Haitians marched in their nation’s capital Monday to show their anger over the nurse and baby’s abduction. 

“She is doing good work in the community, free her,” read a cardboard sign held by a protester. 

The Associated Press contributed to this story.