PORT AU Prince, Haiti– The wife of a filmmaker, best known for his films about Haitian art, culture, and history, has been kidnapped, while three Turkish citizens kidnapped nearly a month ago have been released.
The authorities said that the wife of filmmaker Arnold Antonin was kidnapped Tuesday from her family residence in Thomassin, a neighborhood on the mountainside south of Pétion-Ville.
Reports said armed individuals entered the house, tied up the filmmaker and house staff, and kidnapped Mrs. Antonin.
Antonin, 80, has been honored for lifetime achievement with the Djibril Diop Mambety award at the International Film Cannes Festival in 2002. He also received the Paul Robeson African Diaspora best film award at FESPACO in Ouagadougou in 2007, 2009, and 2011.
Meanwhile, the 400 Mawozo gangs, blamed for several criminal activities, including murder in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country, have released three of eight Turkish missionaries kidnapped nearly a month ago. The Turkish nationals were among 12 people, including three Haitians, seized in the same area where the Dominican diplomat Carlos Guillén Tatis had been kidnapped on April 29
They were kidnapped in the Croix-des-Bouquets neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, controlled by the 400 Mawozo gangs.
A representative of the Metro Tours bus company, Michaelle Durandis, confirmed that the women had been released for health reasons without elaborating.
It is not known whether a ransom had been paid for their release.
The 400 Mawozo gangs previously kidnapped 17 members of a US-based missionary group in the same area last October. They had demanded a US$17 million ransom, but the missionaries were able to escape.
The French Embassy has issued a travel advisory reminding its nationals that “criminal violence is very high, especially in the two main cities of the country, Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien, where firearms circulate in abundance.
“Although the local population is the main affected, foreigners can also be the victims,” the embassy said, adding that “periods of renewed acts of robbery are observed in all areas of the capital, at any time of the day.”
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