27361: (news) Chamberlain: Three French nationals kidnapped in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan 27 (Reuters) - An 84-year-old nun and two
other French citizens on a humanitarian mission to Haiti were kidnapped
near a dangerous slum in the capital, police said on Friday.
     Inspector-General Michael Lucius, head of Haiti's judicial police,
said the missionaries were abducted at gunpoint on Tuesday on a notoriously
dangerous road near Cite Soleil, a shantytown on the north side of
Port-au-Prince, and may have been set up by their Haitian driver.
     "As a Haitian, I think the driver knew there was almost a 100 percent
chance someone would be kidnapped in that area," Lucius said. "Why did he
choose it?"
     Kidnapping for ransom is part of a plague of violence engulfing the
poor Caribbean nation as it edges closer to its first election since former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from office in February 2004.
The vote is set for Feb. 7.
     More than 1,900 people have been kidnapped in Port-au-Prince in the
last 10 months, police sources say.
     Police said the abductors of the French missionaries demanded a
ransom.
     French officials in Port-au-Prince were involved in trying to secure
the hostages' release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris said.