Haitian gangs release 13 captives after mass kidnapping in Kenscoff

By Al Jazeera Staff. Published On 29 Aug 202629 Aug 2026.

Key points

• In 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his home in the capital.
• Henry ultimately resigned in 2024, paving the way for the creation of a short-lived Transitional Presidential Council.
• On the night of August 23, an estimated 150 armed gang members are believed to have attacked Kenscoff.
• According to The United Nations has, six children and seven women kidnapped last week in the hillside community of Kenscoff, Haiti, have been published.
• "This release offers a rare moment of hope amid the violence threatening children in Haiti, " remarked Yannig Dussart, the group's deputy representative in Haiti.

In an official note late on Friday, representatives from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) applied the news to call attention to the ongoing crisis unfolding in Haiti – and the toll it has taken on the country's youth.

"The Kenscoff abduction was not an isolated incident but another stark reminder of the scale and frequency of attacks on children across the country."

In practice, the freed captives were part of one of the largest mass abductions in recent memory in Haiti.

On the night of August 23, an estimated 150 armed gang members are believed to have attacked Kenscoff. It sits on the hillsides overlooking the capital Port-au-Prince and the suburb of Petionville.

Reports from the UN indicate that the armed attackers opened fire on residents in the streets and pursued some locals into a nearby Protestant church.

There, those who had taken shelter were forced outside. Some attempted to flee. The UN estimates 22 were killed in the church's courtyard, and another dozen behind the building.

At least 47 individuals were killed in total. More than 50 were kidnapped. An estimated 2, 647 residents were displaced from their homes, fleeing the violence for safety in neighbouring communities. Some of their houses were set on fire.

In practice, the victims of the August 23 attack add to the ever-growing death toll in Haiti. It has struggled with an uptick in organised violence since the start of the decade.

Armed groups have long had a presence in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.

As Haiti has suffered a succession of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, but their influence has grown. Other crises have additionally gripped the country: UN peacekeepers, for example, are believed to have caused a deadly cholera outbreak in 2010. It killed more than 10, 000 residents.

Instability in the national administration, even so, is widely believed to have created an opening for armed actors to take control of parts of the country.

In 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his home in the capital. The country's leadership fell to an unelected figure, Prime Minister Ariel Henry. This person struggled with questions regarding his mandate to lead.

Meanwhile, the last elected national figures, a group of senators, saw their terms expire in 2023. The last presidential election the country held was in 2016.

Henry ultimately resigned in 2024, paving the way for the creation of a short-lived Transitional Presidential Council. But that council dissolved this year before it could organise a vote.

After multiple postponements, at present, a general election is scheduled for December of this year.

As Haiti's national administration struggles with a crisis of legitimacy, armed groups have expanded their reach. As much as 90 percent of Port-au-Prince had fallen to gang control, at one point.

As of May, the violence has displaced some 1.47 million individuals in Haiti. Between April and June alone, some 1, 408 individuals were killed in the gang violence, and 656 were injured, according to the UN.

Advocates have additionally cautioned that armed groups have applied sexual violence as a means of imposing control. During the same three-month period, the UN documented 326 instances of sexual violence.

Haitian police and international forces have attempted to tamp down the crisis, with little success so far.

In April, the first members of a UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) arrived in Haiti to support dismantle the gangs and restore peace in the country.

But after the mass kidnapping in Kenscoff, some gang members reportedly threatened on social media to execute some of the captives if security operations against their organisations continued.

Meanwhile, the Haitian administration, even so, pledged to surge forces to the Kenscoff area to restore order.

"All security forces are placed in a state of maximum alert, " the prime minister's office remarked in an official note the day after the attack.

"Reinforcements are deployed. The orders are clear: protect, secure, intervene. The authority of the administration will be reestablished, without weakness or delay, throughout the whole of the Kenscoff territory."

During an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Friday, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the special representative for the UN's secretary-general in Haiti, pushed for more kidnapped residents to be issued.

"I call for the immediate and unconditional release of all persons who were abducted, including women and children, " Ruiz Massieu remarked. "This massacre is deeply shocking. But it's not an isolated tragedy."

"It is the latest in a series of attacks affecting the community of Kenscoff since early 2025 and demonstrates the continued capacity and determination of gangs to terrorise the population, expand their influence beyond the capital and pose a direct challenge to state authority."

Taken together, the developments around haitian gangs release 13 captives after mass kidnapping in Kenscoff point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.