PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Missionaries whose families come from Pennsylvania are among 17 members of a group kidnapped by a gang in Haiti more than a week ago.
Loved ones and other supporters worldwide and across the country spent this weekend praying for the missionaries after a video was released Thursday showing the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang threatening to kill those abducted if his demands are not met. Haitian officials have said the gang is seeking $1 million ransom per person.
A spokesman for Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries has said the families of those kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada.
A Christian Aid Ministries open house scheduled for early November in Ephrata, Lancaster County was canceled due to the hostage situation. Ephrata has a large Anabaptist and Mennonite community.
The FBI is helping Haitian authorities recover the 16 Americans and one Canadian. A Haitian human rights group said their Haitian driver also was kidnapped.
Five children are among the group members, the youngest being 8 months old.
At the White House on Friday, U.S. press secretary Jen Psaki sidestepped questions about whether the Biden administration would look to halt deportations of Haitians to their home country or consider adding a U.S. military presence on the ground in response to the missionaries’ kidnappings.
“We are working around the clock to bring these people home,” she said. “They are U.S. citizens, and there has been targeting over the course of the last few years of U.S. citizens in Haiti and other countries too...for kidnapping for ransom. That is one of the reasons that the State Department issued the warning they did in August about the risk of kidnapping for ransom.”
Related
UNICEF said Thursday 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. “Whether on their way to school, at home or even at church, girls and boys are at risk of being kidnapped anywhere, at any time of the day or night.”
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.
Jay Sorgi contributed to this report.
