17 missionaries kidnapped in Haiti
They were on their way home from building an orphanage
Agroup of 17 US missionaries including children was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organisation with direct knowledge of the incident.
The missionaries were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a message from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries. “This is a special prayer alert,” the one-minute message said. “Pray that the gang members would come to repentance.”
The message says the mission’s field director is working with the US Embassy, and that the field director’s family and one other unidentified man who stayed at the ministry’s base while everyone else visiting the orphanage, was abducted.
No other details were immediately available.
A US government spokesperson
said they were aware of the reports on the kidnapping.
“The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the Department of State,” the spokesperson said, declining further comment.
Haiti is once again struggling with a spike in gangrelated kidnappings that had diminished after President Jovenel Moise was fatally shot at his private residence on July 7, and following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August and killed more than 2,200 people.
Gangs have demanded ransoms ranging from a couple hundred dollars to more than $1 million, according to authorities.
Last month, a deacon was killed in front of a church in the capital of Port-au-Prince and his wife kidnapped, one of dozens of people who have been abducted in recent months.