Haiti gang leader threatens to kill missionaries
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — 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 Thursday saying he will kill them if he doesn’t get what he’s demanding.
“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,” Wilson Joseph said in the video posted on social media.
He also threatened Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the chief of Haiti’s National Police, Leon Charles, as he spoke in front of 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 the gang demanded $1 million per person, although it wasn’t clear whether that included the five children in the group. Sixteen Americans and one Canadian were abducted, along with their Haitian driver.
The missionaries are with Ohiobased
Christian Aid Ministries. A spokesman for the religious group said the families of those who’d been kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada.
The same day the missionaries were kidnapped, a gang also abducted a Haiti professor, according to a statement that Haiti’s ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection issued Tuesday. It also noted that a Haitian pastor abducted this month has not been released despite a ransom being paid.
“The criminals ... operate with complete impunity, attacking all members of society,” the organization said.