UN peacekeepers in Haiti free fifth kidnapped person, perpetrators flee

United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti freed a kidnap victim this week, bringing the total to five persons whose release they have forced in six weeks, the mission said.

The latest victim was Ali Rafael Araujo, a Dominican Republic national in his twenties who was held by his abductors for two weeks, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said.

A six-member Brazilian MINUSTAH patrol spotted five armed men on Tuesday near the central market in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and drove towards them. On seeing the patrol, the five ran away, abandoning their victim. Witnesses later told the mission that the gunmen had been moving from their initial hiding place.

In other operations in Port-au-Prince on the same day peacekeepers arrested a man suspected of belonging to a gang in the Bel Air shantytown and turned him over to the Haitian National Police, the mission said.