By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 30 (Reuters) - Haiti has been hit with a growing number of kidnappings this year as its government struggles to build a stable democracy in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

More than 150 people have been kidnapped for ransom since the start of 2008, Haitian and U.N. police said this week.

"We have noted an increase in the number of kidnappings and other acts of criminality," Fred Blaise, a spokesman for the U.N. police in Haiti, said on Friday.

"We have registered 152 abductions from January to May 2008 compared to 237 for the whole year of 2007," said Blaise.

Human rights activist Pierre Esperance, who heads the National Network to Defend Human Rights, questioned that official tally, however. Close relatives of kidnap victims often refuse to report cases to the police to protect their loved ones from being killed, he said.

"Only about half of the cases are reported because the bandits usually warn they would kill hostages if relatives denounced kidnappings to the police," said Esperance.

"From 2005 up to now, at least 27 hostages, including 12 children, have been executed by their captors, sometimes even after a ransom was paid," Esperance told Reuters.

The latest case involved Karim Xavier Gaspard, an abducted 16-year-old schoolboy. His body, bearing signs of torture, was found on May 23, hours after his parents had paid a ransom for his release.

Haiti has seen little but political upheaval and brutal dictatorship since French colonial rule ended with a slave revolt more than 200 years ago.

President Rene Preval is currently trying to pull together a new government to replace one toppled by food riots in April. At least six people were killed in the protests, which spread from the southern city of Les Cayes to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and other towns and cities. (Editing by Tom Brown)

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