Nurse tells kidnappers who held her for 13 days she 'hopes to hug' them
A nurse who was kidnapped in Haiti for almost two weeks by “gangsters” has said she would have no trouble treating them - and hopes to “hug” them in heaven.
Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter were taken on July 27 from an El Roi Haiti site - a Christian non-profit working to build communities in the area for which Dorsainvil works - in an encounter involving guns. It is unknown who kidnapped them and why, nor what the conditions for their release after 13 days were.
But in a video address directly from Dorsainvil to her captors, she said: “I want you guys to know that everything I said during my time in captivity was sincere,” she said in Haitian Creole. The video was shared on the community ministry website where she works.
Dorsainvil added: “They were not the manipulative words of someone desperate to escape but simply the truth, especially when I told you my clinic doors are always open to you or anyone in need when you’re sick or wounded, without any problem.”
She told the captors: “I love you in Christ, and one day I hope to hug you in heaven.” The New Hampshire native, despite referring to them as “gangsters, said she holds “no grudges against you in my heart”.
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Children from the local area campaigned for Alix's realease (AP)Dorsainvil said she understands the kidnappers are “in a search for happiness, satisfaction, money, power and status to fill the void in your hearts – like a hole in your heart, an empty space within your heart – and you’re searching for all of those things as a way to try to fill that hole, that empty space,” CNN reported.
“But I want you to know that those things will never truly satisfy you. They will never fill the void in your hearts. The only way for this hole to be filled is with the love of Jesus Christ.”
It is not the first time someone spreading a Christian message has been taken hostage in Haiti - although of the 1,014 kidnappings in Haiti in the first 6 months this year, most cases involved locals. In 2021, 17 US and Canadian missionaries were captured and held for over a month.
Alix married Sandro Dorsainvil, director of El Roi Haiti (AP)The day Dorsainvil was kidnapped, the US State Department ordered all nonemergency government personnel to leave Haiti due to a deterioration in security. US nationals had also been told to leave due to armed clashes between police and criminals in Port-au-Prince.
Dorsainvil first went to Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake while she was in college - and now spends school and summer breaks in the nation. El Roi Haiti said in a statement that she “fell in love with the people”.
She has worked as a schoolchildren nurse since 2020, and married the director of the non-profit, Sandro Dorsainvil, in 2021. “My love for Haiti has not changed or gone away,” she continued in the video.
“If it were uniquely my decision, I’d be working in the clinic today. But I know that I’ve undergone a lot of trauma, emotional trauma, and I need to take some time to heal. But I would like to come back to be there for you and to support you in Christ.”
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