A couple from Florida who went to Haiti to see sick family members has been abducted and is being held for ransom, according to the couple’s family.
Their family told NBC Miami that Abigail and Jean-Dickens Toussaint were going to Leogan, which is about 27 miles west of Port-au-Prince, but they never got there. Since March 18, no one has heard from them.
Their niece, Christie Desormes, told NBC Miami that a group told her aunt and uncle to get off a bus and has been holding them since then. The family said that the kidnappers changed the deal after they paid more than $2,000 of the $6,000 ransom.
“It makes me feel a lot. It’s a terrible thing. Desormes said, “You feel angry that it happened, and then you feel numb because it doesn’t feel real.”
Desormes asked people to call their state representatives and ask for help to bring her aunt and uncle home.
In a statement on Sunday, the State Department said it had heard that two Americans were missing in Haiti.
“When a U.S. citizen goes missing, we work closely with local authorities as they search, and we give families any information we can,” said the statement. “Right now, we don’t have anything else to say.”
Wednesday, the First Haitian Baptist Church of Pompano Beach posted about the Toussaints and asked its members to pray for them.
“Along with our prayers, we are asking our government officials to use their power to bring these two back to us, where they belong,” the church said.
People were asked to pray for the Toussaints at a “intercession” on Friday night, which was held by the church.