A Florida couple who went to Haiti to visit sick family members has been kidnapped and are currently being held for ransom.
The two American citizens were ordered off of a bus and kidnapped in the Caribbean nation a week ago, according to the family.
Relatives of Jean-Dickens Toussaint and his wife, Abigail Toussaint, both 33, say they already paid $6,000 in ransom, but now the alleged kidnapers are demanding upward of $200,000 per person.
The couple, who lives in Tamarac, in Broward County, Fla., reportedly left behind their young son, who will turn two in a matter of days.
“The U.S. Department of State and our embassies and consulates abroad have no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas. We are aware of reports of two U.S. citizens missing in Haiti,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital Sunday. “When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can. We have nothing further to share at this time.”
The couple’s 22-year-old niece, Christie Desormes, who lives out of state in Silver Spring, Maryland, recently told WPLG that the Toussaints had only planned to be in Haiti for four days to visit family and attend a festival.
She says, the couple was kidnapped while taking a bus from the Port-Au-Prince area.
“They stopped the bus at a stop and then asked for Americans to get off the bus and their escorts off the bus, and then they took them,” Desormes told the outlet.
“I’m still in a state of shock,” the couple’s niece added. “It feels like it didn’t happen, but I know it did, especially since I saw them last month for my birthday.”
“I do have the worst-case scenario playing in my head, but obviously I don’t want that to happen,” she said. “We just want to hear their voice as proof that they are still alive.”