Aug 3: Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris spoke with his Haitian counterpart overnight, the government said in a statement, during which they agreed to stay in touch on their work to ensure the group is released, including missionary Gena Heraty.

Gena Heraty has been on mission in Haiti since 1993, helping young and often vulnerable children. The orphanage cares for more than 200 children and is renowned for its kind, loving and dedicated work. Authorities say that the kidnappers broke through an outer wall and then headed straight for the main building in the compound, executing a carefully crafted plan. 

Aware for years of the deteriorating situation, the crisis and the risks involved, she has bravely said: ''The children are why I'm still here. I've no intention whatsoever of leaving, because we're all in this together.''

Lawlessness and gang violence plague Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. The United Nations says that more than eighty percent of the Capital Port Au Prince is under the stranglehold control of the street gangs and organized crime. 

Kidnapping is an everyday, commonplace crime in Haiti, often aimed at gaining large sums of cash for guns and other equipment. 

Nations, especially those from the Caribbean, have sent police officers to Haiti, to bolster its fragile security forces. But no major nation has yet offered it a troop reinforcement to form a peacekeeping operation.

Haiti wants to hold Presidential elections, but this isn't currently possible due to widespread instability. 

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris spoke with his Haitian counterpart overnight, the government said in a statement, during which they agreed to stay in touch on their work to ensure the group is released, including missionary Gena Heraty.

Armed gangs have in recent years targeted a number of religious, charitable and medical aid groups, including hospitals, NGOs, nuns and priests from congregations based in and around the capital, as well as foreign missionaries. 

Over 3,100 people were killed and 336 kidnapped for ransom in the first half of this year in Haiti, according to BINUH estimates, as the number of residents displaced by the extended conflict with the powerful gangs - largely grouped behind a coalition called Viv Ansanm - nearly doubled to 1.3 million.

Haitian authorities have repeatedly called for more resources to fight the gangs. A partially deployed and deeply under-equipped U.N.-backed mission kicked off over a year ago but has had little effect in slowing gangs' advances.