Haiti gang leader threatens to kill kidnapped missionaries
The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang that police say is holding 17 members of a kidnapped missionary group is seen in a video released yesterday saying he will kill them if he doesn’t get what he’s demanding.
The video posted on social media shows Wilson Joseph dressed in a blue suit, carrying a blue hat and wearing a large cross around his neck.
“I swear by thunder that if I don’t get what I’m asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans,” he said in the video.
He also threatened Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the chief of Haiti’s National Police, Leon Charles, as he spoke in front of the open coffins that apparently held several members of his gang who were recently killed.
“You guys make me cry. I cry water. But I’m going to make you guys cry blood,” he said.
Earlier this week, authorities said that the gang was demanding US$1 million ($1.4m) per person, although it wasn’t immediately clear that included the five children in the group, among them an 8-month-old. Sixteen Americans and one Canadian were abducted, along with their Haitian driver.
The missionaries are with Ohiobased Christian Aid Ministries, which held a news conference before someone posted the video of the gang leader.
Weston Showalter, spokesman for the religious group, said that the families of those who’d been kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada.
The organisation later issued a statement saying it would not comment on the video “until those directly involved in obtaining the release of the hostages have determined that comments will not jeopardise the safety and well-being of our staff and family members”.
The same day that the missionaries were kidnapped, a gang also abducted a Haiti university professor, Haiti’s ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection said. It also noted that a Haitian pastor abducted earlier this month has not been released despite a ransom being paid.
“The criminals . . . operate with complete impunity, attacking all members of society,” the organisation said.
Unicef said yesterday that the number of women and children kidnapped in the first eight months of this year has surpassed the total for all of last year. “Nowhere is safe for children in Haiti anymore,” Jean Gough,
Unicef regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.
Unicef said 71 women and 30 children were kidnapped this year, up from 59 women and 37 children last year. “They represent one third of the 455 kidnappings reported this year,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads and burned tires in Haiti’s capital to decry a severe fuel shortage and a spike in insecurity and to demand that the prime minister step down.
The scattered protest took place across the Delmas neighbourhood of Port-au-prince.
In addition to kidnappings, the gangs also are blamed for blocking gas distribution terminals and hijacking supply trucks, which officials say has led to a shortage of fuel. Many gas stations now remain closed for days at a time, and the lack of fuel is so dire that the CEO of Digicel Haiti announced on Wednesday that 150 of its 1500 branches countrywide are out of diesel. AP