Nine people, including an Irish mission worker and a disabled three-year-old child, were drowned yesterday, Sunday, in Haiti, officials in the Caribbean country said, in the grip of ruthless gang violence.

They were kidnapped overnight in Kenscoff, a community southeast of the capital Port-au-Prince, inside the Sainte-Hélène orphanage of the “Nos petits frères et sœurs” organization, which operates in several countries in Central and South America.

The victims are the head of the facility, Gina Herati, a missionary member, an Irish national, seven Haitian employees and a three-year-old child with a disability, the mayor of Kenscoff, Massillon Jean, and a source close to the humanitarian organisation told the French news agency.

“The attackers entered the orphanage at around 03:30 (local time; 10:30 GMT) without opening fire. They broke through a wall to enter the property and headed to the building where the woman in charge lives,” before “leavin,g taking the nine hostages,” the elected official said, stressing that it was a “planned action.”

There has been no claim of responsibility at this stage, nor has a ransom been demanded.

Mrs Herati was however able to have a brief telephone conversation with colleagues yesterday Sunday morning to confirm her abduction, the source close to the orphanage clarified.

St Helena currently houses about 270 children, of which about fifty have physical or mental disabilities.

On the website of the organization “Our Little Brothers and Little Sisters,” Gina Herati is listed as an Irish woman “in charge of programs for children and young adults with disabilities in Haiti,” who has lived in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere since 1993.

In recent years, Haiti has seen numerous kidnappings of foreigners involved in missionary work.

In April 2021, ten people, including two French priests, were kidnapped in Croix de Bouquet by the “400 Mawozo” gang before being released 20 days later. The same criminal group kidnapped 16 US nationals and one Canadian from the missionary organisation “Christian Aid Ministries”.

Since January, the Kenshkov community has become a target of the “Viv Ansanm” (“living together”) gang alliance, which has already taken over many others, forcing their residents to flee.

Law enforcement forces are finding it difficult to restore security in this area.

At least 3,141 people were murdered in Haiti between January 1 and June 30, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) alarmingly stressed in July, expressing fear that gang violence, which has escalated further since 2024, will destabilise other Caribbean states.