PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – A gang held responsible for the kidnapping of five priests and two nuns in Haiti earlier this year are now accused of kidnapping 17 missionaries, including one, from a U.S. organization 2-year-olds, the police said on Sunday.
The 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped the group – which included some elderly people – in Ganthier, a community east of the capital Port-au-Prince, Haitian police inspector Frantz Champagne told The Associated Press.
The gang, whose name means around 400 “inexperienced men”, controls the Croix-des-Bouquets area, which includes Ganthier, where authorities say they kidnap, steal cars and blackmail business owners.
Haiti is grappling again with a surge in gang abductions, which has declined in recent months after President Jovenel Moïse was fatally shot in his private home on July 7 and more than 2,200 people were killed in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in August.
Missionaries were on their way home from building an orphanage on Saturday, according to a message sent to various religious missions from Christian Aid Ministries, based in Ohio.
Armed forces secure the area where Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry placed a bouquet of flowers in front of the monument to independence hero Jean Jacques Dessalines in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sunday, October 17, 2021. A group of 17 U.S. missionaries, including children, were kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, October 16, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident. (AP photo / Joseph Odelyn)(Joseph Odelyn / RELATED PRESS)
“This is a special prayer alarm,” the one-minute message read. “Pray that the gang members will come to repentance.”
The message states that the mission’s field manager is working with the U.S. embassy and that the field manager’s family and one other unidentified man stayed at the department’s base while everyone else visited the orphanage.
Further details were not immediately known.
A US government spokesman said officials were aware of reports of the kidnapping.
“The well-being and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the State Department’s top priorities,” the spokesman said, declining to comment.
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Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry, center, lays a bouquet of flowers at the monument to independence hero Jean Jacques Dessalines in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sunday, October 17, 2021. A group of 17 US missionaries, including children, were kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, October 16, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident. (AP photo / Joseph Odelyn)(Odelyn Joseph / RELATED PRESS)
Meanwhile, a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was in contact with Haitian authorities to try to resolve the case.
According to authorities, gangs have been demanding ransom payments ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than a million dollars.
Last month, a deacon was killed outside a church in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and his wife, one of dozens of people abducted in recent months, was abducted.
According to a report by the United Nations Integrated Bureau in Haiti, known as BINUH, at least 328 kidnap victims were reported to the Haitian National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared with a total of 234 in all of 2020.
Gangs have been accused of kidnapping school children, doctors, police officers, busloads of passengers and others while they are gaining power. In April, a man who claimed to be the gang leader of 400 Mawozo, a radio station, said they were responsible for kidnapping five priests, two nuns and three relatives of one of the priests that month. They were later released.
A protest is planned for Monday to denounce the nation’s lack of security.
“Political unrest, the increase in gang violence, deteriorating socio-economic conditions – including food insecurity and malnutrition – all contribute to the worsening humanitarian situation,” BINUH said in his report. “An overloaded and understaffed police force alone cannot solve Haiti’s security problems.”
The UN Security Council unanimously decided on Friday to extend the United Nations political mission in Haiti.
The missionaries’ kidnapping comes just days after senior U.S. officials visited Haiti and pledged more funding to the Haitian National Police, including an additional $ 15 million to reduce gang violence that displaced thousands of Haitians now in Emergency shelters are living in increasingly unsanitary conditions.
Among those who met Haiti’s chief of police was Uzra Zeya, US Secretary of State for Civil Security, Democracy and Human Rights.
“Breaking down violent gangs is vital to the stability of Haiti and the security of its citizens,” she tweeted recently.
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