PORT-AU-PRINCE – The destiny of an American nurse and her daughter kidnapped in Haiti final week stays unknown Tuesday because the U.S. State Division refused to say whether or not the abductors made calls for.

Round 200 Haitians had marched of their nation’s capital Monday to indicate their anger over an abduction that’s one other instance of the worsening gang violence that has overtaken a lot of Port-au-Prince.

Alix Dorsainvil of New Hampshire was working for El Roi Haiti, a nonprofit Christian ministry, when she and her daughter had been seized Thursday. She is the spouse of its founder, Sandro Dorsainvil.

Witnesses advised The Related Press that Dorsainvil was working within the small brick clinic when armed males burst in and seized her. Lormina Louima, a affected person ready for a check-up, stated one man pulled out his gun and advised her to chill out.

“When I saw the gun, I was so scared,” Louima stated. “I said, ‘I don’t want to see this, let me go.’”

Some members of the group stated the unidentified males requested for $1 million in ransom, a typical follow of the gangs killing and sowing terror in Haiti’s impoverished populace. A whole lot of kidnappings have occurred within the nation this yr alone, figures from the native nonprofit Heart for Evaluation and Analysis in Human Rights present.

The identical day Dorsainvil and her daughter had been taken, the U.S. State Division suggested Individuals to keep away from journey in Haiti and ordered nonemergency personnel to depart, citing widespread kidnappings that repeatedly goal U.S. residents.

The violence has stirred anger amongst Haitians, who say they merely need to stay in peace.

Protesters, largely from the world round El Roi Haiti’s campus, which features a medical clinic, a faculty and extra, echoed that decision as they walked via the sweltering streets wielding cardboard indicators written in Creole in crimson paint.

“She is doing good work in the community, free her,” read one.

Local resident Jean Ronald said the community has significantly benefitted from the care provided by El Roi Haiti.

Such groups are often the only institutions in lawless areas, but the deepening violence has forced many to close, leaving thousands of vulnerable families without access to basic services like health care or education.

Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders announced it was suspending services in one of its hospitals because some 20 armed men burst into an operating room and snatched a patient.

As the protesters walked through the area where Dorsainvil was taken, the streets were eerily quiet. The doors to the clinic where she worked were shut, the small brick building empty. Ronald and others in the area worried the latest kidnapping may mean the clinic won’t reopen.

“If they leave, everything (the aid group’s programs) will shut down,” Ronald worried. “The money they are asking for, we don’t have it.”

State Division spokesman Matthew Miller would not say Monday if the abductors had made calls for or reply different questions.

“Obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority. We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities. We’ll continue to work with them and our US government interagency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not more detail I can offer,” Miller wrote in a press release Monday.

In a video for the El Roi Haiti web site, Alix Dorsainvil describes Haitians as “full of joy, and life and love” and other people she was blessed to know.

Dorsainvil graduated from Regis School in Weston, Massachusetts, which has a program to assist nursing schooling in Haiti. Dorsainvil’s father, Steven Comeau, reached in New Hampshire, stated he couldn’t speak.

In a weblog put up Monday, El Roi Haiti stated Alix Dorsainvil fell in love with Haiti’s individuals on a go to after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It stated the group was working with authorities in each nations to free her and her daughter.

“Please continue to pray with us for the protection and freedom of Alix and her daughter. As our hearts break for this situation, we also continue to pray for the country and people of Haiti and for freedom from the suffering they endure daily.”

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AP journalists Megan Janetsky in Mexico Metropolis and Pierre Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.

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