Haiti workers strike in response to kidnappings

Responding to the recent wave of kidnappings in Haiti, workers staged a protest strike that shuttered businesses, schools and public transportation Wednesday.

The work stoppage was a new blow to Haiti's anemic economy.

Unions and other groups vowed to organize another strike next week as sporadic protests erupted Wednesday in Port-au-Prince over the lack of fuel, with gangs blamed for blocking gas distribution terminals.

Dozens of moto taxi drivers zoomed around one Delmas neighborhood, setting barricades of tires on fire and throwing rocks across some roads to block them.

Negotiations stretched into a fourth day seeking the return of 17 members of a U.S.-based missionary group kidnapped over the weekend by a violent gang that is demanding $1 million ransom per person.

"I send a warning to the government, not to enter into the logic of negotiating with these bandits who make the law of the country," said Haitian law student Paul Kenley LaRochelle voicing his skepticism of any dealings with the gangs.

The kidnapped group includes five children whose ages range from 8 months to 15 years, although authorities were not clear whether the ransom amount included them, a top Haitian official said Tuesday.

Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one Canadian.

The abduction is one of at least 119 kidnappings recorded in Haiti for the first half of October, according to the Center of Analysis and Research of Human Rights, a local nonprofit group. It said a Haitian driver was abducted along with the missionaries, bringing the total to 18 people taken by the gang.

The kidnapping was the largest of its kind reported in recent years. Haitian gangs have grown more brazen as the country tries to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people.