Kidnappings of 16 Americans and a Canadian in Port-au-Prince come as hundreds of local residents face similar targeting, with at least 628 abductions so far this year

Firel Joseph was driving through Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, one evening this year when he noticed a white Toyota Land Cruiser with official license plates trailing close to his rear bumper. Assuming the other driver wanted to overtake him, the 44-year-old development worker gave way. Then things took a hellish turn.

The car skidded to a halt in front of Joseph, while another vehicle appeared behind, boxing him in. Six men, wearing flak jackets and armed with rifles, piled out of the Land Cruiser, moving with military discipline.

Authorities are negotiating for their release but reluctant to pay money that will be used for ‘more guns and more munitions’

A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of American and Canadian missionaries has demanded a $17m ransom for their release, according to the country’s justice minister.

Liszt Quitel told the Wall Street Journal the FBI and Haitian police were in contact with the kidnappers from the 400 Mawozo gang, who seized the missionaries at the weekend outside the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The incident highlights the deteriorating security conditions in Haiti’s capital

The deteriorating security situation in Haiti was starkly underlined on Sunday when the country’s prime minister and his security detail were forced to flee an official commemoration in the capital by heavily armed gang members who then paraded in the delegation’s place.

A day after a dozen US missionaries and their children were kidnapped in a brazen attack to the east of the capital Port-au-Prince, video circulating on social media and reports in the Haitian media showed the country’s most notorious crime boss, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, officiating at the ceremony to commemorate the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of Haiti’s revolutionary founding fathers.

Analysis: about half the capital, Port-au-Prince, is controlled by criminals, many of whom do dirty jobs for business and politicians

The kidnapping of 17 foreign missionaries in Haiti marks the latest escalation in a wave of criminality in the impoverished and politically fragile Caribbean state, which has long seen waves of gang-related crime coincide with heightened political turmoil.

According to some estimates, Haiti’s powerful gangs, numbering about 90 criminal organisations in total, control territory amounting to half of the sprawling capital of Port-au-Prince and cost the country over $4bn a year.