A Florida couple visiting Haiti has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom, family members told the authorities.
Speaking with WPLG-TV, loved ones say that Jean Dickens Toussaint and his wife Abigail Toussaint traveled to the Caribbean country to spend time with relatives and attend a festival, but they never made it to the festival.
The Tamarac, Fla., couple, both 33, and a travel companion were abducted from a bus in the Port-Au-Prince area March 18, according to family members.
“They stopped the bus at a stop and then asked for Americans to get off the bus and their escorts off the bus, and then they took them,” their niece Christie, who declined to provide her last name, told the station.
“I do have the worst-case scenario playing in my head, but obviously I don’t want that to happen,” she said. “We just want to hear their voice as proof that they are still alive.”
According to the outlet, Christie said the kidnappers initially ordered $6,000 for their release, but upon payment, they upped the demand to $200,000 per person.“We don’t have that type of money,” said Christie.
“It’s a lot of emotions, it’s devastating, you feel angry it happened and then you feel numb at the same time because it doesn’t feel real,” she told WTVJ-TV.
Christie said the Toussaints are also parents to a 1-year-old who was not with them on their trip.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in a statement that officials are “aware of reports of two U.S. citizens missing in Haiti.”
“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can,” the spokesperson said. “We have nothing further to share at this time.”
Haiti is currently listed on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list, due to kidnapping, crime and civil unrest, a travel advisory reads.