COUNTRIES WHERE YOU’RE MOST LIKELY TO BE KIDNAPPED

Bon voyage!

What is your dream vacation?

Maybe you’d love to explore the jungles of Southeast Asia, or maybe you’d rather stick to the resorts. Perhaps your eyes are set on South America. Or maybe you’d prefer a traditional vacation to Europe or the American West.

While many of us dream of travel and endless vacations, we tend to forget about just how dangerous life can be for tourists. In fact, surviving the plane ride might be the easiest part.

Though you might feel safe in your own town or country, many places in the world today still aren’t as safe as we’d like to think they are, and hundreds of thousands of children and adults are kidnapped each year. What’s more frightening is that we’ll never know how many people go missing in cases that aren’t even reported.

When planning your next vacation, keep in mind the following countries where you’re most likely to get kidnapped. Safe travels!

Mexico

Mexico is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and tourists are often cautioned not to travel beyond resorts. Tourists will most often face a risk of getting robbed at an ATM where they’ll be forced to withdraw as much cash as possible. Actual kidnappings are typically financially motivated and carried about by small-time thugs and gangs and not the larger cartels. There were over 1,500 reported kidnappings in 2013, but experts warn that more than 99% may be going unreported. Scary stuff.

Bon voyage!

India

Though the large country is a dream destination for many, kidnappings in India make the country substantially more dangerous. Sadly, the main targets are children, who can even be taken from their own home. Many of these kidnappings are done purely for ransom, however, so families desperately pay to have their kids returned. There were approximately 3,000 kidnappings in 2010.

Bon voyage!

Pakistan

Like its neighboring countries, many parts of Pakistan remain extremely dangerous for foreign tourists. In 2014, it was the third-most common country for kidnapping crimes.

Iraq

Another Middle Eastern country on this list, the instability of the area has prolonged the danger for foreigners wishing to travel to Iraq. What’s even more frightening here is that kidnapping isn’t limited to civilian travelers but to foreign diplomats as well.

Nigeria

One of the countries you may have heard the most kidnapping news out of in recent years in Nigeria, where groups like the Boko Haram notoriously kidnap large groups of girls (and others) at once, sometimes not releasing them for years.

Libya

Ranking as the sixth-most dangerous country for kidnapping in 2014, Libya’s unstable political climate makes it a perilous place for foreigners. In 2016, two Italian tourists and one Canadian were released after over a month of abduction.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh has only seen kidnapping rates increase over the past few years. What’s especially scary here is that sometimes it’s the police who are disappearing dissenters. One famous Bangladeshi rights activist has been missing since 1996.