TAMARAC, Fla. (NewsNation) — For the first time in more than a week, the Toussaint family said on Sunday that they spoke to their loved ones who were kidnapped and were being held for ransom in Haiti.

Jean-Dickens Toussaint, an accountant, and Abigail Michael Toussaint, a social worker — a Tamarac couple — were traveling to visit family members in Haiti when they were captured by Haitian gang members on March 18. Since then, Jean-Dickens Toussaint has only been allowed to make two brief calls.

The couple was on their way to Jean-Dickens’ hometown of Leogane when gangs stopped the public bus they were on as it tried to cross Martissant, considered ground zero for ongoing violence that has worsened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The gangs apparently noticed the suitcases in the bus and zeroed in on the couple and the person accompanying them on the trip, Jean-Dickens’ sister Nikese Toussaint said.

“Apparently those commercial buses have a deal to pay the gangs to not bother them for each trip from Port-au-Prince to our town Leogane, but apparently that bus driver that day didn’t pay the fee and kind of let them go as collateral,” Jean-Dickens’ niece Christie DeSormes said.

The family paid someone they trusted $6,000 to give to the gang, but the money vanished. It’s not unusual for gangs in Haiti to refuse to release kidnapping victims even after they’ve been paid, but Nikese believes it was a scam.

Christie told NewsNation that she feels helpless, especially since the first round of paying the ransom didn’t work. “And they tried to jack up the price,” she added.

“That’s when we said, ‘Uh, oh, we have to get help,'” she recalled. “We didn’t know what to do at that point. We don’t want to take any more risks.”

All Nikese said she knows is that Jean-Dickens and Abigail are tied up, saying the phone calls are too brief to find out if they are being given food or water or treated generally well.

Nikese said her family is in touch with the FBI, which is helping with the case.

“To the gangs, I want to say, we want our family back. We are not rich over here,” Nikese said.

A statement from the U.S. State Department said the agency was aware of reports of two U.S. citizens being kidnapped and was in regular contact with Haitian authorities.

The kidnappings are the latest to target U.S. citizens, although most victims are Haitian, ranging from wealthy business owners to humble street vendors. At least 101 kidnappings were reported in the first two weeks of March alone, with another 208 people killed in gang clashes during that period, according to the U.N.

The ongoing violence in Port-au-Prince and beyond also has displaced at least 160,000 people as warring gangs set fire to neighborhoods in their bid to control more territory.

More than a week has gone by since the Toussaints were kidnapped. Their family is trying to stay strong because the couple has a son who turns 2 on Tuesday.

“We’re trying to smile,” Nikese Toussaint said of their video calls with the boy. “We have to smile with him and give him love, and at the same time we get a little smile (from him), and that’s when the pain gets a little harder.”

Right now, there is a level four travel advisory still in place for Haiti because of the unrest and violence as well as kidnapping.

Christie said her uncle and his wife were aware of the risk — but they absolutely had to see this family member in Haiti because it was a life-or-death situation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.