Kidnapping of American nurse, her daughter in Haiti deals blow to aid efforts in impoverished nation

The kidnapping of an American nurse and her young daughter in Haiti last week has impacted aid efforts in the impoverished nation devastated with ongoing gang violence. 

Alix Dorsainvil, originally from New Hampshire, was reportedly abducted Thursday from the campus of faith based non-profit El Roi Haiti in Port-au-Prince amid gang warfare wreaking terror in the local populace. Nearly a week after her and her daughter’s kidnapping, details on their fate remain scarce.

Aid providers are concerned that the kidnapping will result in fewer services being made available to the Haitian people.

“(The kidnapping) is definitely going to have a chilling impact on the work that particularly smaller aid groups do in the country,” Renata Segura, International Crisis Group’s deputy director for Latin America and Caribbean, told The Associated Press. “People are going to be thinking about it twice before returning to those communities.”

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Doctors Without Borders last month announced that it was suspending services in one of its hospitals because some 20 armed men had burst into an operating room and snatched a patient.

“There is such contempt for human life among the conflicting parties, and such violence in Port-au-Prince, that even the vulnerable, sick and wounded are not spared,” Mahaman Bachard Iro, the organization’s head of programs in Haiti, wrote in a statement. “How are we supposed to be able to continue providing care in this environment?

Dorsainvil was working in a small brick clinic when armed men burst in and seized her, witnesses told AP. The captors have reportedly demanded $1 million in ransom, a standard practice used by the gangs to get money to fund operations.

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U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller would not provide details Monday on what was being done to locate and recover Dorsainvil and her daughter.

“Obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority. We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities,” Miller said in a statement. “We’ll continue to work with them and our US government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer.”

Dorsainvil, who is married to the program’s director, Sandro Dorsainvil, has been working at the organization as a school nurse since 2020, according to the non-profit. She first traveled to Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake and “fell in love with the people,” the group said.

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“Please continue to pray with us for the protection and freedom of Alix and her daughter,” the organization said Monday in a statement. “As our hearts break for this situation, we also continue to pray for the country and people of Haiti and for freedom from the suffering they endure daily.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.