The husband and wife were visiting relatives and attending a festival.
Mar 24, 2023 4:37pm ET
• 5 minutes reading time
An American couple visiting Haiti are being held for ransom after being kidnapped from a bus nearly a week ago, according to their family.
Jean-Dickens Toussaint and his wife Abigail Toussaint, of Tamarac, Fla., were in Haiti to visit sick relatives and attend a community festival when they were kidnapped on Saturday while riding a bus from Port-au-Prince, they said your family.
Jean Dickens Toussiant and Abigail Toussaint are seen in this undated photo. Toussaint and Imbert family
A family friend who met the couple at the airport to escort them was also kidnapped, her niece Christie, who declined to give her last name, told ABC Miami affiliate WPLG.
“They stopped the bus at a stop and asked the Americans on the bus and their escorts to get off the bus, and then they gave them a lift,” Christie told the station.
In response to an inquiry about the incident, the US State Department did not confirm a kidnapping, but said there were “reports of two US citizens missing in Haiti.”
The family learned of the ransom demands after the friend who was accompanying the Toussaints contacted his relatives, Christie said.
The kidnappers initially demanded $6,000 for the couple’s release, Nikese Toussaint, Jean Dickens Toussaint’s sister, told ABC News. However, after they sent the money, the price went up to $200,000 per person and “we don’t have that kind of money,” Christie told WPLG.
Jean Dickens Toussiant and Abigail Toussaint are seen in this undated photo. Toussaint and Imbert family
Nikese Toussaint said they didn’t know how to contact the Haitian police so had not contacted them, but said they had contacted the US Embassy and the US Department of Homeland Security.
“The U.S. Department of State and our embassies and consulates abroad have no higher priority than the safety of U.S. citizens abroad,” the U.S. Department of State said. “When a US citizen goes missing, we work closely with local authorities as they conduct their search efforts and we share information with families wherever we can.”
“We have nothing further to share at this time,” the statement added.
Jean Dickens Toussiant and Abigail Toussaint are seen in this undated photo. Toussaint and Imbert family
The pair have a 1-year-old son who is “fortunately not with them” but is staying with a relative, Nikese Toussaint said.
Family members said they were worried about the couple making the trip given the political unrest and gang violence in Haiti.
“We were very concerned when they said they were going. We told them not to go but they wanted to go,” Nikese Toussaint said.
The US State Department advises Americans not to travel to Haiti “due to kidnapping, crime and civil unrest.”
“I have the worst-case scenario in my head, but I keep trying to turn it down because I don’t want that to happen,” Christie told WPLG.
“We just want to hear their voice as proof that they are still alive,” she said.
ABC News’ Aicha El Hammar Castano contributed to this report.
