At least 81 people were reported kidnapped in Haiti between April and June 2026, a 42% increase from the first quarter, as gangs targeted prominent people and carried out mass abductions ahead of long-awaited elections. The state can’t protect people, even in its own ranks: James Boyard, police inspector general and cabinet director of Haiti’s Defense Ministry, was kidnapped in broad daylight in June from Bourdon, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince considered relatively safe. He hasn’t been released.
“We don’t have the amount they’re asking for,” Haitian attorney Dorime Boulos said in mid-September as he announced a fundraiser to help free well-known attorney Caleb Jean-Baptiste. Boulos declined to reveal the ransom demanded. “We are condemned to live here. We don’t have another society or spare country.” His appeal for dialogue and the community fundraiser offer an immediate response where official protection has failed; most Haitians, meanwhile, don’t report abductions of loved ones because they fear reprisals, higher ransoms or disrupting negotiations with kidnappers.
The State’s Promise of Security
Haiti was preparing to hold general elections for the first time in more than a decade. The country hasn’t had a president since President Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence in July 2021, and violence has surged since then. Elections, Romain Le Cour, head of the Haiti Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said, “act as accelerators.” Each kidnapping draws international attention and puts pressure on political actors, he said, exposing “the state’s inability to protect even its own.”
The security response from the top is a larger force and more training. Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé said restoring security was a top priority. He said 4,000 new police officers were being trained in 2026, 1,500 soldiers had completed training, and a total of 15,000 new soldiers was planned. In late September, Haiti’s National Police said nearly a dozen officers had trained to negotiate with kidnappers.
“We are strengthening our national forces to meet our security challenges,” Fils-Aimé said, adding that international partners’ support “remains essential.” The U.N.-backed gang suppression force received a renewed mandate Tuesday, September 29, 2026. It had almost 1,600 personnel, and its size would likely double soon, Daniela Kroslak, assistant secretary-general and head of mission of the U.N. Support Office in Haiti, told The Associated Press. The official plan calls for more armed personnel and outside support; the figures arrive as kidnappings continue to reach people in places considered safe.
Who Pays for the Failure
The reported toll climbed sharply after mass kidnappings began around 2020. The U.N. reported 234 cases that year, up 200% from 78 abductions in 2019. In 2021, reported kidnappings rose to 655, a 180% increase from the previous year. The abduction and killing of high school student Évelyne Sincère in 2020 sparked large protests demanding government action.
Reported kidnappings reached 1,359 in 2022 and 2,490 in 2023, an 83% increase from 2022. At least 2,058 people were reported kidnapped in 2024. The U.N. said no social group was spared, naming laborers, traders, religious leaders, professors, medical doctors, journalists, human rights defenders and foreign citizens among victims. Reported kidnappings fell nearly 40% to 1,268 in 2025, but they’re rising again; the actual number was believed to be much higher because many abductions went unreported.
This summer, gangs attacked Kenscoff, a farming community near Port-au-Prince, killing at least 164 people and kidnapping more than 70 others. They later released six children and seven women; the rest remained captive. In the waning days of September, gangs in Petite-Rivière held hundreds of civilians hostage in retaliation after police arrested a couple of gang members. At least eight people were killed and 10 injured. “People were trying to escape, and they shot them for no reason,” said Bertide Horace, spokesperson for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite. “The state needs to take more action.”
The Police Uniform as a Mask
Le Cour said criminal groups used official or cloned police uniforms, vehicles and license plates to carry out abductions, and noted allegations that some law enforcement agents were involved. “It takes intelligence to kidnap high-level targets, and that intelligence usually comes from collusion,” he said. Police uniforms and vehicles can be copied. The apparatus of authority becomes part of the kidnapping tactic.
“No one is out of reach,” Le Cour said. “These kidnappings send a message: the police can’t protect the population, and the state itself is vulnerable.”