Travel Security: Here Are the 35 Countries The U.S. State Department Warns Have Heightened Kidnapping Risk

Criminals or terrorists in nearly three dozen countries have threatened to kidnap or hold people hostage -- or actually done so -- over some kind of ransom demand, and for the first time, the U.S. State Department is noting that risk.

Up until now, U.S. travel advisories have weighed the state of such crises as crime, civil unrest, health or the potential for terrorism to devise level-based threat levels -- the highest of which is Level 4, Do Not Travel -- for other countries. It added a new indicator, "K," to denote the risk of being kidnapped or held hostage -- and assigned it this week to 35 countries across the globe. 

These are the 35 countries making the initial list, in no particular order:

1. Afghanistan

2. Mexico

3. Phillippines

4. Colombia

5. Lebanon

6. Mali

7. Burkina Faso

8. Libya

9. Haiti

10. Central African Republic

11. Iraq

12. Iran

13. Nigeria

14. Niger republic

15. Pakistan (Balochistan province and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, including the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)

16. Turkey (areas near the Syria and Iraq borders)

17. South Sudan

18. Democratic Republic of the Congo (North Kivu and Ituri provinces)

19. Sudan

20. Syria

21. Cameroon (North, Far North, Northwest and Southwest regions, and parts of East and Adamawa regions)

22. Somalia

23. Venezuela

23. Papua New Guinea

24. Kenya

25. Ukraine (eastern parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts)

26. Uganda

27. Ethiopia (Somali Regional State)

28. Trinidad and Tobago

29. Bangladesh (Southeast Bangladesh, including the Chittagong Hill Tracts)

30. Russia (the north Caucasus, including Chechnya and Mount Elbrus)

31. Yemen

32. Algeria (areas near the eastern and southern borders and areas in the Sahara Desert)

33. Malaysia (eastern area of Sabah State)

34. Angola (urban areas)

The state department says the new category was added as part of an effort to give Americans comprehensive information about travel safety. It came days after the release of a California woman who had been held for a week after being kidnapped by gunmen in a national park in Uganda.

Culled from: 

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/US-Travel-Warning-Kidnapping-Risk-Abroad-Which-Countries-508486171.html