A diplomat assigned to the Dominican Republic’s Port-au-Prince embassy is Haiti’s latest kidnapping victim, a senior Haitian government official has confirmed.
Carlos Guillén Tatis was traveling through a gang stronghold and site of ongoing violence by warring armed gangs on Friday when he was reportedly abducted while on his way to the Haitian-Dominican border. Guillén Tatis works as an agricultural adviser in the Dominican embassy and is also reportedly a U.S. citizen.
As of late Monday, his whereabouts remained unknown, said the source, confirming that the Haitian government was notified immediately about the missing diplomat and officials in both countries have been in touch since the weekend.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola. Since a week ago Sunday, however, intensifying gang violence has disrupted the lives of thousands of individuals living east of metropolitan Port-au-Prince and made travel difficult between the Haitian border town of Malpasse and the neighboring city of Jimaní on the Dominican side.
The war involves the 400 Mawozo gang, which was behind last year’s kidnapping of 17 missionaries with an Ohio-based charity, and Chen Mechan, a rival gang aligned with the G-9 gang coalition. Their clashes have killed at least 20 civilians, Haiti’s Office of Civil Protection said, and forced hundreds of Haitians from their homes in the combat zone. The volatile situation risks plunging Haiti into an even deeper humanitarian crisis and further isolating Port-au-Prince at a time when the capital is already cut off from four regional departments in the south because of gang clashes at its southern entrance since June.
The area under siege includes thousands of acres in the fertile lowland known as the Plaine de Cul de Sac and the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, where a number of high profile inmates are jailed, including gang members and suspects in last July’s assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
Video images shared with the Miami Herald of one of the neighborhoods under attack, Santo, show streets completely deserted.
Taking to Twitter Monday, the owner of Rhum Barbancourt, Delphine Gardère, posted a photo of Haitians fleeing and tweeted: “Scene of war in front of Barbancourt this morning… the inhabitants of our community in Damien are women and children from the area who are fleeing under the bullets. @DrArielHenry what are you doing?!!!”
As Gardère’s tweet went viral, Haitian social media was flooded with photos of unidentified individuals who had been lynched, their eyes gouged out. Haitian police did not respond to Herald calls to confirm reports that the individuals killed in the nearby pine forest were gang members slain by the population after they reportedly attempted to move into the area.
This latest round of violence started after 400 Mawozo, known for its kidnapping of people by the car and busloads, attempted to take over parts of Chen Mechan’s territory in the area. The latter gang is said to focus on racketeering and extortion from businesses.
Dominicans have repeatedly found themselves swept up in Haiti’s gang violence and kidnapping pandemic. Several Dominican truck drivers have been kidnapped and released in the past year. In February 2021, two Dominican filmmakers were grabbed and held hostage along with their Haitian translator as they were returning from a movie shoot in the seaside town of Jacmel.
The trio was crossing the neighborhood of Martissant at the southern entrance of the capital when they were abducted. The group was finally released after more than a week in captivity and after an undisclosed ransom payment by the Haitian government.
During that ordeal Dominican President Luis Abinader publicly took to Twitter to press Moïse for his assistance in securing the release of his citizens. Since Moïse’s still unsolved assassination, Haiti’s gang violence and political instability have worsened, with gangs controlling increasing large swaths of the country.
