Kidnappings in Haiti have increased threefold during the first three months of the year compared to the last quarter of 2022, human rights group CARDH recently announced as violence continues to increase in the Caribbean country. 

According to the rights organisation, there were at least 389 kidnappings reported in Haiti in between January and March of this year. This figure is more than three times the 127 CARDH reported in the previous quarter and a 72 per cent rise from the same period last year.

In a study, the Port-au-Prince-based human rights research organisation said that the “exponential increase” may be the result of a need to make up for losses brought on by late-2017 international sanctions.

A number of prominent politicians and businesses have been sanctioned by nations like the United States and Canada on the suspicion that they are aiding in the funding and supply of well-armed gangs that are now thought to rule the majority of the nation.

According to CARDH, the rise might also be the result of new gang alliances formed as they expand their territorial control, which would open up new markets for the “kidnapping industry.”

The group also pointed to the possibility of upcoming elections and the rise of civilian defense groups defending neighbourhoods from gangs in place of a police force that is under-equipped.

Gangs use these kidnappings to ask for ransom payments from family members of the victims. If the payments are not met, the victims are subjected to torture, including burns, rape, and hanging, the group said. 

The report further stated that 29 of the 389 victims of kidnappings that CARDH tracked were from other nations.

CARDH counted 857 kidnappings over 2022, a decrease from the 1,009 it recorded in 2021, the year President Jovenel Moise was assassinated leaving a power vacuum that prompted gangs to expand their territory.