People gather in front of the San Francisco Federal Building on Friday to protest against the US' arbitrary deportation of thousands of Haitian refugees, which started on September 19. US special envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote resigned after the "inhumane, counter-productive" move. Photo: cnsphoto

Haitians on Monday mounted a nationwide strike to protest a growing wave of kidnappings, days after the abduction of a group of missionaries prompted FBI involvement and fueled international concerns over gang violence in the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation.

Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries on Sunday said a group of its missionaries, 16 Americans and one Canadian, were in Haiti to visit an orphanage when they were abducted near the capital, Port-au-Prince. 

Security experts suspect that the kidnapping was carried out by a gang known as 400 Mawozo.

Haitian authorities have remained silent about the incident, and the whereabouts of the group of missionaries, which includes women and children, is unknown.

A White House spokeswoman said Monday that the FBI was working with the US diplomatic team in Haiti in efforts to locate and free those missing.

In a statement, the FBI confirmed its role. "The FBI is part of a coordinated US government effort to get the Americans involved to safety," it said, declining to give further details.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that the US had dispatched a small team to Haiti to assist in efforts to locate and free the missionaries.

The missing missionaries have spotlighted a problem that has plagued Haiti - the hemisphere's poorest nation - for years. 

Kidnappings have become more brash and commonplace in recent months amid growing political and economic crisis, with at least 628 incidents in the first nine months of 2021 alone, according to a report by the Haitian nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, or CARDH.

Shops and schools in Port-au-Prince were shuttered on Monday as part of the strike first called by transportation industry leaders - whose workers are among the most common targets of gang abductions.

By early afternoon, billowing clouds of dark smoke towered above several sectors downtown as growing groups of protesters burned barricades on streets of the capital.

AFP