(EDINBURGH, U.K.) — Monster hunters, assemble! The Loch Ness Centre announced it’s set to begin the biggest search for its infamous mythical creature in over 50 years and volunteers are needed.
In partnership with research team Loch Ness Exploration, the tourism company is looking for volunteers to join in a search for the legendary Nessie from Aug. 26- 27. The search is dubbed the biggest of its kind since the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau studied the lake in 1972, it said.
“Over the weekend, surveying equipment that has never been used on Loch Ness before will be enlisted to uncover the secrets of the mysterious waters. This includes thermal drones to produce thermal images of the water from the air using infrared cameras, as observing heat from above could provide a crucial component for identifying any mysterious anomalies,” the Loch Ness Centre said in an announcement on its website.
A hydrophone will also be used to detect acoustic signals under the water.
The Loch Ness Centre is looking for volunteers to take part in a surface watch of the Loch, to keep an eye out for breaks in the water and any “inexplicable movements.”
Volunteers will be briefed on what to look out for and how to record findings.
Alternatively, tickets are being sold for four cruises available over the weekend, with the opportunity to use a 60 foot hydrophone to listen for noises in the loch.
The mythical creature is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands, according to local folklore. Reported sightings and a series of disputed photos depict a dinosaur-like beast with a long neck. Previous attempts to find the creature have yielded scant evidence of its existence.
(LISBON, Portugal) — You’d think you were at a music festival — jubilant crowds singing and dancing, wearing face paint, even having a beer in some cases. And the young people packing the streets of Lisbon are here for their very own rockstar: Pope Francis.
Close to 800,000 young people from around the world came out to see Francis on Friday, according to Portuguese officials, with that number expected to rise over the weekend. Often described as a type of “Catholic Woodstock,” World Youth Day is a five-day event that’s held once every three years for young Catholics, most between the ages of 18-25.
“I’ve been a Catholic for 62 years, and I’ve never been to masses as joyful,” said ABC News contributor Father James Martin.
“The atmosphere itself is like an Energizer bunny,” said Haley Nash, who travelled from St. Petersburg, Florida. “Everybody’s pumped to be here, everybody’s saying ‘Hola’ and talking to each other. It’s overwhelmingly beautiful.”
The pope seemed to be loving it. Despite his recent hospitalizations for abdominal surgery and infectious bronchitis, he’s moving full steam ahead with a jam-packed agenda.
Aboard the Papal plane, he joked with reporters that he expected to come out of World Youth Day feeling “rejuvenated.” By day three, that seemed to be the case.
Though he may be using a wheelchair and a cane, the Pope appeared to be feeding off the youthful energy around him. In a powerful, playful moment on Thursday, he was even engaging with the crowd — just like a popstar — asking them to yell back at him that the Church is a place for “todos,” “everyone.”
“Repeat after me. Todos, todos, todos,” he told them. “I can’t hear you. Todos, todos, todos.”
“The energy of the youth inspires him, and gives him energy, and new life. He’s clearly happy to be with young people — and they’re happy to be with him,” said Martin.
Francis here is also addressing a number of issues that matter to young people. He’s talking about the need to preserve the environment for future generations, and even warning of the dangers of social media.
“I really admire Pope Francis’s attention to my generation,” said Johanna Schuh, who travelled from Nashville, Tennessee. “I think [we’re] often left out, and I think that’s been received well.”
But as he lays the groundwork for the future of the Catholic Church, the past still hangs heavy over it all.
An independent commission in Portugal reported earlier this year that close to 5,000 boys and girls were abused by members of the Catholic Church since the 1950s — most of the abusers being priests, with the Church “systematically” working to conceal the issue.
The Pope privately met with some of the victims on the first day of his visit, in what the Vatican described as a moment of “intense listening.” The Pope also publicly called for the Church to listen to “the anguished cry of the victims.”
The Pope also met with a small Ukrainian delegation. In a new interview released today by Spanish-language religious magazine Nueva Vida, he said Cardinal Zuppi would now be heading to Beijing. Zuppi has been tasked with negotiating peace in Ukraine and has already been to Moscow, Kyiv and Washington.
The Pope on Saturday will be at the shrine of Fatima, where he’s expected to implore peace for Ukraine.
Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to three children in Fatima in 1917 and, among other things, requested the conversion and consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pope Francis consecrated both Ukraine and Russia shortly after the start of the war in 2022.
(NEW YORK) — A Moscow court has extended the detention of Travis Leake, an American man detained by Russia on drug charges.
Heavily armed Russian police arrested Leake in early June at his apartment in Moscow, accusing him of selling narcotics. Leake, 51, had lived in Russia for more than a decade, working as an English teacher and as a musician in the country’s rock scene. He was detained along with a Russian woman, Valeria Grobanyuk.
Leake has denied the charges and a former colleague has suggested he may have been targeted by Russian authorities as an American.
At a hearing Thursday, a judge prolonged Leake’s pre-trial detention until Sept. 6.
Leake’s detention comes amid ongoing concerns that Russia may seize U.S. citizens as political hostages to use as leverage, following a string of such cases. In March, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges, which the United States and dozens of international media outlets have denounced as fabricated.
WNBA star Brittney Griner, as well as two former Marines, Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan, were also all detained on charges the U.S. said were spurious. Griner and Reed were later freed in prisoner swaps for Russians held by the U.S., while Whelan and Gershkovich remain in detention.
The U.S. and Kremlin last month confirmed they are in talks about a potential prisoner swap to free Gershkovich but so far have not found a clear path to a deal.
The U.S. has not designated Leake as wrongfully detained like Gershkovich and Whelan and has commented little on his detention.
In court on Thursday, Leake again denied the charges against him and pleaded with the U.S. to trade him if possible.
Speaking from inside a cage where defendants are kept, an agitated Leake told reporters he was enduring grim conditions in jail, denied proper food, toilet paper and other essentials, saying he has already suffered bronchitis twice because he was often being forced to sleep on the floor.
“They’re trying to kill me,” Leake shouted at the judge.
Leake currently had only a court-appointed attorney, who was not present at the hearing.
A representative from the U.S. embassy was also present in the court.
Leake, who speaks Russian, was the front man of his band Lovi Noch but had also worked with some well-known Russian rock bands that have been critical of Vladimir Putin’s government.
Dmitry Spirin, leader of the successful band, Tarakani, who spoke to ABC News shortly after Leake’s arrest, said Leake had worked as a trainer with him on English-language performances. Spirin disbanded his group last year under pressure from the authorities after publicly criticizing the war in Ukraine and Putin’s regime.
In a decade of knowing Leake, Spirin said, he had never heard he was selling drugs and said he did not believe the charges against him. “Not 1%,” Spirin said.
The Russian government is “trying with all available means to one way or another detain, arrest Americans so as to fill up an [prisoner] exchange pool. So that it will be possible to blackmail the States,” Spirin said.
“In my view, it’s this standard practice that started already a few years ago with the basketball player, not long ago continued with the correspondent and now Travis has fallen foul of it,” he went on.
Leake appeared in a 2014 segment of the Anthony Bourdain show “Parts Unknown,” filmed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the segment, Leake complained about political censorship and criticized the Russian government, alleging that an episode of an MTV series about dissident musicians in which he featured had been shelved under pressure from the authorities.
On Thursday, Leake told the court he had loved Russia.
“I spent a decade of my life trying to help the world not hate you guys but now you’ve made me hate you,” he said. “I didn’t do this to you.”
(LONDON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent could be sentenced Friday to an additional two decades behind bars on extremism charges.
A Russian judge is set to deliver a verdict in the closed-door trial against Alexey Navalny at a courtroom inside the maximum-security prison camp in Melekhovo, about 145 miles east of Moscow, where the Russian opposition leader is already serving 11 1/2 years. Russian prosecutors have requested a 20-year prison sentence for the latest charges, which stem from Navalny’s pro-democracy campaigns against Putin’s regime.
If the judge finds Navalny guilty, it will be his fifth criminal conviction. All of the charges have been widely viewed as a politically motivated strategy by the Kremlin to silence its fiercest critic.
The 47-year-old lawyer-turned-politician has been in jail since 2021, upon returning to Russia after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. In 2022, a Russian judge added another nine years to Navalny’s sentence of 2 1/2 years on embezzlement and other charges.
Earlier this year, Navalny’s team sounded the alarm over his deteriorating health while in solitary confinement, saying he has not received any treatment. They said he has been repeatedly put in solitary confinement for two-week stints for months.
On the eve of Friday’s verdict, Navalny said in a social media statement from behind bars that he expects a “Stalinist” sentence of about 18 years.
“When the figure is announced, please show solidarity with me and other political prisoners by thinking for a minute why such an exemplary huge term is necessary,” Navalny wrote in the social media post on Thursday. “Its main purpose is to intimidate. You, not me. I’ll even say this: you personally, who are reading these words.”
In closing statements during his last hearing on July 20, Navalny condemned Russia’s ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine.
“[Russia is] floundering in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones, with a poor and robbed population, and around it lie tens of thousands of people killed in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century,” he said.
(SAN DIEGO, CA) — Two U.S. Navy sailors have been arrested on charges related to allegedly spying for China, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Both are accused of having passed along national defense information to Chinese intelligence officials in return for cash payments.
Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, a 22-year-old petty officer 2nd class, was arrested Wednesday and charged with espionage. Wei served as a machinist’s mate aboard the amphibious ship USS Essex, which is currently receiving maintenance at Naval Base San Diego.
Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, of Monterey Park, California, was also arrested Wednesday, by FBI and NCIS agents, and is charged with conspiracy and receipt of a bribe by a public official. Zhao, 26, worked at the Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme and had an active U.S. security clearance who had access to classified information.
According to officials, Wei and Zhao are alleged to have each worked with Chinese intelligence officers to whom they passed along sensitive information related to the technologies they worked with and about upcoming Navy operations, including international military exercises.
Officials said Wei allegedly began communicating with an intelligence officer from China’s government in February 2022 who tasked him with passing photos, videos and documents concerning U.S. Navy ships and their systems.
Wei and his handler agreed to hide their communications by deleting records of their conversations and using encrypted methods of communications, officials claim.
Wei is alleged to have passed along imagery of the USS Essex, provided the locations of various Navy ships and provided dozens of technical and manual for systems aboard his ship and other Navy ships.
In June 2022, Wei was allegedly paid $5,000 by the Chinese intelligence official after having passed along the initial batch of those manuals, officials say.
Throughout their interactions, the intelligence official allegedly instructed Wei to gather U.S. military information that was not public and warned him not to discuss their relationship and to destroy evidence of their relationship and activities.
If convicted, Wei could face 20 years to life in prison.
Zhao is alleged to have begun working with a Chinese intelligence official in August 2021 and continuing to do so through at least May of this year, according to officials.
He is alleged to have passed along photos and videos, blueprints for a radar system in Okinawa and operational plans for a large scale U.S. military exercise in the Pacific.
In exchange for this information, the indictment against Zhao alleges that he received $14,866 in payments from the Chinese intelligence officer.
If convicted, Zhao could fact a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
(EAGLE PASS, TX) — Two people have been found dead in the southern part of the Rio Grande river, officials said.
One body was found stuck in the lines of orange buoys installed by Texas authorities near the U.S.-Mexico border. A second body was discovered separately in the area of the buoys by the Beta Group of Piedras Negras, according to a statement from Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary and Mexico’s Migration Institute.
The Texas Department of Public Safety notified the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon that a person was found dead in the southern part of the floating barriers. Members of the Mexican National Institute of Migration’s assistance unit are spearheading efforts to recover the body, according to the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“So far, the cause of death and nationality of the person is unknown,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The identifies of the bodies are unknown. It is not clear yet if the deceased are migrants.
A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said a “possible drowning victim” was first spotted floating upstream from the buoys. The spokesperson said DPS notified CBP and the Mexican Consulate.
“Later that day a body was discovered at the marine barrier,” the spokesperson said.
Added DPS Director Steven McCraw: “Preliminary information suggests this individual drowned upstream from the marine barrier and floated into the buoys. There are personnel posted at the marine barrier at all times in case any migrants try to cross.”
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs repeated its condemnation of the buoys, calling them a “violation of our sovereignty.”
“We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants that these state policies will have, which go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between our country and the federal government of the United States,” the ministry added. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to follow up on the case promptly through the Mexican Consulate in Eagle Pass, maintaining contact with the corresponding authorities in Mexico and the United States to obtain more information on what happened and to request that the necessary investigations be carried out.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety, at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, began installing the floating barriers along portions of the Rio Grande river this summer in an effort to deter migrants from illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Abbott over the use of the buoys.
While cases of mpox continue to decline across the United States and Europe, infections are steadily rising in China.
For the week ending July 21, 117 cases were confirmed in China, according to data from the World Health Organization. Between the week ending May 5 and the week ending July 21, 315 cases were reported.
This comes after just six cases were confirmed throughout all of 2022, WHO data shows.
Additionally, China had the highest increase in the weekly number of cases during the most recent week of full reporting and cases have risen have more than 50% over the last three weeks, the global health agency said.
“As we know from not only COVID … we only see the tip of the iceberg and we’re not really sure what the true enormity of the issue is,” Dr. Peter-Chin Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “Of course, mpox hasn’t gone away and we’ve seen that here. But I think it’s exemplified in places that hadn’t seen a lot of mpox before.
“If you hadn’t seen it before, at some point, it’s going to get there and probably infect people,” he added.
The global mpox outbreak began in the United Kingdom in spring 2022 before spreading throughout Europe and, eventually, to the U.S. At this time, China still had COVID restrictions in place with little travel allowed in and out of the country.
The outbreak was primarily concentrated among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that anyone — regardless of sexual orientation — can contract the virus.
After seemingly poised to overwhelm the U.S., the outbreak took a dramatic turn downward. Public health experts have said the combination of people changing their behaviors and a strong vaccination campaign helped beat back the disease.
Despite the WHO declaring the mpox public health emergency over in May 2023, that’s just when cases began rising in Asia, including Japan, Thailand and, most recently, China.
However, case reporting has not been regular in Beijing. The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released just one report, last month, documenting 106 cases in June.
No data has been released on any other monthly cases, reminiscent of irregular reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, there are three vaccines in use around the world to prevent mpox: the Jynneos vaccine (the only one being used in the U.S.), ACAM2000 and Imvanex, although none are approved in China.
“There’s a lot of nationalism in Chinese diagnostics, and vaccines and therapeutics,” Chin-Hong said. “So, China tends to want to use their homegrown stuff. And there’s some early trials for a Chinese mpox vaccines, but there hasn’t really been a lot of outreach, as far we know, to the one factory that makes it which is in Denmark.”
Chin-Hong also added there’s been a lack of urgency to combat the outbreak in China despite the rise in cases. The Chinese CDC only posted a program to prevent and control the spread on July 26, which made mention of a public education program but not of a vaccine campaign.
Chin-Hong added, even though it seems this may not affect the U.S., in today’s closely connected world, diseases can spread quite quickly, as we saw with COVID-19.
“We should care because with these transmissible diseases and globalization of infectious diseases, what happens in China doesn’t only stay in China, even though sure [mpox] is less transmissible,” he said. “So, it can easily find to many places around the world again, and lead to secondary outbreaks. So, anything happening in China, with the world open up again, can affect even more rapidly, other countries.”
(WASHINGTON) — North Korea for the first time responded to messages regarding U.S. Army Private 2nd Class Travis King, who ran across the demilitarized zone two weeks ago, according to defense officials.
“I can confirm that the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] has responded to United Nations Command, but I don’t have any substantial progress to read out,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing Tuesday when asked by ABC News for an update on attempts to communicate with North Korea.
The message, which came on Monday Eastern time, was superficial — the North Koreans merely acknowledging that King had crossed into the country, and saying that the incident is under investigation.
King, 23, has been a cavalry scout in the U.S. Army since 2021 and had no previous deployments before serving in South Korea, according to Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee. King spent 47 days in a South Korean jail after an altercation with locals, and was released in June according to U.S. officials.
After about a week on a U.S. base completing out-processing tasks, King was escorted to South Korea’s Incheon International Airport where he was to board a flight and end up in Fort Bliss, Texas, where he most likely faced separation from the Army, officials told ABC News. The escort walked with King as far into the airport as possible without having tickets, parting with him at the customs or security checkpoint.
Instead of boarding his flight, King at some point left the airport, joining a tour of the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, the heavily-fortified area separating North Korea from South Korea. King broke from the group, then “willfully and without authorization crossed the military demarcation line,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said two days after the July 18 incident.
On the North Korean side, King was driven away in a van, and is believed to have been taken to the capital city, Pyongyang.
“I’m absolutely foremost concerned about the welfare of our troop. We will remain focused on this, and this will develop in the next several days,” Austin added.
U.S. officials say they remain concerned for King and have no knowledge of his wellbeing.
(NIGER) — High-ranking officials at the U.S. Department of State are trying to restore democratic order in Niger, a key U.S. ally on counterterrorism.
There may be a “narrow opportunity” to reverse an attempted coup in the West African nation, according to one senior U.S. official.
The official told ABC News on Monday that the U.S. does not believe the military general behind the recent events, Col. Maj. Abdourahmane Tchiani, has widespread support among Niger’s public.
Military leaders in Niger are hesitant to act against Tchiani over fear that any intervention will prompt the Nigerian presidential guard — led by the general — to turn on the democratically elected head-of-state, Mohamed Bazoum, and his family, the official said.
As Tchiani continues to try to demonstrate control, U.S. officials have not with engaged him out of concern that communicating directly with the general could lend him legitimacy, according to the official.
The situation remains wildly fluid, the official said, but the unrest appears to be confined to the area immediately surrounding the presidential palace in Niger’s capital of Niamey.
Last Wednesday, a group of mutinous soldiers led by Tchiani announced on Nigerian state television that they have “put an end to the regime” of Bazoum due to “the continuing degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance.” The group, which calls itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, said “all institutions” have been suspended, aerial and land borders have been closed and a curfew has been imposed until the situation is stabilized.
“The defense and security forces are managing the situation. All external partners are asked not to interfere,” Tchiani, flanked by soldiers, said in the televised statement.
Bazoum’s apparent ousting marks the seventh attempted coup in West and Central Africa since 2020 and throws into question the future of Niger, a landlocked country that has had four coups since gaining independence from France in 1960. Bazoum was elected to office in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceful democratic transfer of power.
The streets of Niger’s capital have erupted in chaos over the past week. Hundreds of people have marched in support of the president while chanting “No coup d’etat.” But thousands of others have also come out in support of the junta, waving Russian flags and holding signs that read “Down with France.” Protesters have also burned down a door and smashed windows at the French embassy in Niamey before being dispersed by Nigerien soldiers.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional body comprised of 15 West African countries, announced sanctions against Niger on Sunday and threatened to use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate Bazoum within one week. The African Union and the United Nations have also issued statements condemning the apparent coup.
Guinea, a nearby nation that has been under military rule since 2021, issued a statement on Sunday expressing support for Niger’s junta and urging ECOWAS to “come to its senses.” On Monday, the military-ruled governments of Burkina Faso and Mali, which share borders with Niger, released a joint statement denouncing the ECOWAS sanctions as “illegal, illegitimate and inhumane,” refusing to apply them, and also warned that “any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali.”
Since the apparent coup, Bazoum is believed to have been held at his residence in Niamey. The first images of Bazoum surfaced on Sunday, showing him smiling and sitting on a couch beside Mahamat Deby, the president of neighboring Chad, who traveled to Niamey to mediate between the Nigerien government and military.
Nigerien Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou told French media on Sunday that Bazoum will not resign and “is in high spirits” despite the “seizure of power by force.” He also warned that any sanctions imposed on Niger would be a “disaster” for the country.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, spoke via telephone last Thursday to the Niger Armed Forces Chief of Defense, Lt. Gen. Issa Abdou Sidikou, about the developing situation in the West African nation and the safety of Americans there.
Milley also had a call with his French counterpart on Monday to discuss “the security situation in Niger,” according to a government report.
“The long-standing alliance between the U.S. and French militaries plays a critical role in maintaining peace and stability in Europe and other regions around the world,” the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson, Col. Dave Butler, said in a statement.
On Tuesday morning, France announced that it is preparing to evacuate French and European nationals from Niger, citing the recent violence that targeted the French embassy in Niamey as one of the reasons for the decision. The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the evacuation “will happen rapidly,” without providing additional details.
Bazoum’s government has been a top ally to both Europe and the U.S. in the fight against violent extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Africa’s Sahel region. The U.S. Department of Defense said it has provided $500 million in military assistance to Niger since 2012, “one of the largest” security assistance and training packages in sub-Saharan Africa.
Other countries in the region, including Burkina Faso and Mali, have ousted the French military and instead enlisted the help of the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization.
In a voice message posted last Thursday on social media channels linked to Wagner, the group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared to endorse the coup in Niger and offer the services of his fighters to the junta.
A senior official at the U.S. Department of State told ABC News on Monday that Washington continues to assess the recent events in Niger — a result of long-term tensions between power players. The U.S. government, however, still sees Wagner as attempting to take advantage of the situation, one official said.
While the security posture of the U.S. embassy in Niamey remains unchanged, the overall U.S. posture will depend on what transpires in the days and weeks ahead, according to the official. Currently, it appears unlikely that Washington will support any intervention attempts in Niger out of concern that it could trigger open conflict.
The official also lamented that the U.S. ambassador to Niger was only confirmed by the Senate last week, finally filling a 14-month vacancy the official described as a hinderance to diplomacy.
ABC News’ James Bwala, Will Gretsky, Matt Seyler and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(HAITI) — While the whereabouts of an American nurse and her young child reportedly kidnapped in Haiti late last week are still a mystery, the alarming surge of abductions taking place in the country demonstrates a clear and growing danger for both foreign travelers and Haitian citizens.
The efforts to locate Alix Dorsainvil and her child continued Tuesday — five days after they were reportedly kidnapped. Dorsainvil was working near Port-au-Price with El Roi Haiti, a Christian aid organization, when the group says she and her child were taken by unknown assailants — the only publicly known details regarding the apparent abduction.
U.S. officials have been tight-lipped, declining to share any information that may put their efforts to recover the two in jeopardy.
“We’re in regular contact with Haitian authorities and continue to work with them and our U.S. government inter-agency partners, but because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation — there’s not any more detail I can offer,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
Miller declined to say whether the department knew who exactly was holding Dorsainvil and her child, or whether they had requested anything from the U.S. in exchange for their freedom.
The investigation will almost certainly be sharply constrained by the Haitian government’s own limitations. The country admits that gangs control 80% of its capital city’s streets, creating a wide blind spot for law enforcement.
On Thursday, the deteriorating security situation also prompted the State Department to order all family members of U.S. government employees and non-emergency U.S. government employees to leave Haiti.
The crisis in Haiti is worsening, but it is not new: The State Department has for years warned Americans against traveling to the country, classifying it a “level four” — its most severe travel advisory — meaning U.S. citizens should not visit because of a “greater likelihood of life-threatening risks” and the department’s limited ability to provide assistance.
Haiti’s problems compounded in July 2021 when its president was assassinated. The country’s interim leader, Ariel Henry, has struggled to rein in gangs, resulting in escalating violence and exposing the government’s tenuous hold on power.
In the fall of 2022, the battle for control appeared to hit a chaotic crescendo when gangs blockaded Haiti’s largest fuel depot, crippling movement within the country, cutting off clean water supplies and exacerbating a cholera outbreak before negotiations ultimately cleared access to the energy source.
While the situation in Haiti remains dire, groups monitoring crime within the country say reports of offenses such as abductions had appeared to be on the decline — until they started to spike again in recent weeks.
The decrease, analysts say, was brought on not by the country’s authorities or direct assistance from international governments, but by Haitian citizens stepping into de facto law enforcement roles, creating what are known as “vigilance brigades” to patrol their own neighborhoods.
But Diego Da Rin, a Haiti expert with the International Crisis Group, said the gangs are now winning out over those groups, resulting in a resurgence of violent crime.
“That self-defense movement has waned over time,” he told ABC News. “Gangs need to resume their criminal activities and kidnapping is one of their main sources of income. Gang leaders have to pay their soldiers or else risk being overthrown.”
Da Rin says there have been a number of recent cases involving foreign nationals kidnapped in Haiti that have been resolved with the victim being released after a ransom is presumably paid. This could be a cause for some optimism in Dorsainvil’s case, Da Rin said. But he adds there have also been disturbing incidents involving captors filming themselves harming victims as a play to extort payments — and that law enforcement will likely be able to do very little to intervene even if they can identify the criminals.
“The Haitian security forces and U.S. forces present in Haiti are not able to enter the areas where most kidnapped people are held — they’re located in gang strongholds, neighborhoods where security forces haven’t been able to enter for months or even years,” he said.
Nearly 10 months ago, Henry urged foreign militaries to help restore law and order in Haiti. The world’s leading powers have waffled — uneager to embroil themselves in the conflict, especially when the Haitian public has signaled disapproval of outside intervention.
On Saturday, the government of Kenya announced it was ready to lead a multinational force into Haiti, a development that was welcomed by the West.
“We are committed to finding the resources to support this multinational force,” Miller said.
However, the plan faces a number of hurdles, and even if it ultimately succeeds, U.S. officials say it will likely be weeks or even months before it bears any result.
Renata Segura, the deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group, says the mission could also backfire.
“There is a danger that this force could just consolidate power for Henry, an illegitimate Prime Minister — particularly because we don’t see the likelihood of elections taking place anytime soon,” she said.
“The fact that Kenya is volunteering is significant,” Segura continued. “We do hope that the Henry administration doesn’t take this as a signal that they can stop negotiating with the opposition, because we are very concerned about the possibility of unrest and protests if people think that this is just something that is going to benefit Henry.”
