Haines was abducted in March 2013 by an unidentified armed gang while working in a Syrian internally displaced persons (IDP) camp run by the aid group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED).[9] He was kidnapped near the Atmeh refugee camp near the Turkish border and the Syrian province of Idlib.[2] He was seized along with an Italian aid worker named Federico Motka.[2] Their Syrian translator and driver were not taken. The translator later said that insurgents shot out the tires and surrounded their vehicle on a country road.[4][10]
Haines' family were ordered by UK Foreign Office not to speak to anybody about the abduction,[11] an instruction that continued even after the abduction became public when Haines appeared in the purported Sotloff execution video that threatened Haines would be the next victim.[12][13] The UK Foreign Office had also requested the British media to not publish Haines' identity,[14] fearing for his safety.[15] When international press published his name after release of the video, UK media decided to also publish it, with The Independent stating that "no purpose is served by continuing to withhold his name".[