Anatomy of a kidnapping: Haitian woman recounts abduction

Her 85-year-old father, a Vietnam veteran, was abducted in late September, along with his driver and a friend who is the mother of a Haitian singer.

The same kind of gang activity is being blamed for the kidnapping Saturday of 16 Americans and one Canadian — missionaries for a U.S.

By contrast, many other kidnappings go unnoticed — something that bothers people like Michel, who said the FBI provided her family with scant assistance.

Her father and the two other people were abducted by a gang run by Ti Lipli, a member of G9 Family and Allies — a federation considered one of the largest and most powerful in Haiti.

Michel and her mother said they didn’t have that kind of money.

Michel found out that her father and the two other hostages were given a single bowl of white rice each day and three small bags of water.

The three were kept in a locked room with boarded-up windows, where they heard voices of other people they believed also had been abducted.

Experts say Haiti’s gang phenomenon was created when former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide began arming people in slums in the early 2000s since he had an understaffed police department and no army.

Michel said the gang member who called told her mother that he was educated and worked hard to get a degree but couldn’t get a job so he got a gun.

Michel said she dropped off the money at a specific location, only for the gang members to claim they didn’t receive it.

Haitian police did not get involved, she said, or bother to take a statement once the gang released her father by placing him on a motorcycle that took him to his family