Three of a Group of Missionaries Kidnapped in Haiti Have Been Released
The U.S. Christian aid group said three more people were released of the 17 who had been kidnapped by a gang in Haiti. Two were released last month.
NYT - Dec. 6, 2021
Outside the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters last month in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince.Odelyn Joseph/Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Three more hostages from a group of 17 missionaries and their children kidnapped in Haiti have been released, the American Christian charity they were with said on Monday. Their release brought the total number of people freed to five.
In a statement on Monday, Christian Aid Ministries said that the three people released “are safe and seem to be in good spirits.”
The organization did not provide their names, ages or the circumstances of their release, including whether a ransom had been paid. In the past, the group had asked for discretion to protect the hostages still being held.
“We would like to focus the next three days on praying and fasting for the hostages,” the statement read. The group continued, “We long for all the hostages to be reunited with their loved ones. Thank you for your prayer support.”
There was no immediate comment from the United States government on the latest release.
The Ohio-based charity said on Nov. 21 that two hostages had been released.
The kidnapped group, which included 16 Americans and one Canadian, was taken in October by a gang called 400 Mawozo, in a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. Swaths of the city have come under control of criminal groups amid the escalating political and economic crisis that followed the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, in July.
Among those kidnapped were five children, including an infant. Kidnapping has become an increasingly common practice for Haitian gangs, who have targeted even students going to school and pastors delivering sermons.
The 400 Mawozo gang, which is well-known for orchestrating mass kidnappings, had initially demanded a ransom of $1 million per person, although that was widely viewed as a starting sum for negotiations. It is not clear what, if any, money was paid for the five people released so far.
But the gang has been known to release captives with health problems. Haitian officials have said that the two hostages released last month were freed over medical concerns.
The abductions set off alarm among American lawmakers, who condemned the poverty and violence that has wracked Haiti and made kidnapping-for-ransom a big businesses in and around Port-au-Prince, where nearly half the nation lives.
In the days after the missionaries and their children were seized, the F.B.I. sent a team to Haiti to work with the local authorities to secure their release. Under American law, ransoms can be paid to gangs for the release of U.S. citizens held captive. American citizens are barred, however, from paying ransoms to terrorist organizations.
But U.S. officials worry that if ransoms are paid to 400 Mawozo, it will only encourage more kidnappings. There are tens of thousands of Haitian Americans in Haiti at any given moment, according to State Department officials.
Not long after the group was first kidnapped, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang threatened to kill the hostages if the group’s ransom demands were not met.
“I will prefer to kill them and I will unload a big weapon to each of their heads,” the leader, Wilson Joseph, said in a video recorded on the streets of the violent Croix-de-Bouquets neighborhood.
Turks and Caicos police report seven Haitian migrants found dead after boat capsized
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November 30, 2021
Turks and Caicos police say they recovered the bodies of seven people from Haiti Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, whom authorities say were part of a large group of migrants leaving their country. Miami Herald File
Turks and Caicos police say they have recovered the bodies of seven undocumented Haitians Tuesday whom authorities say were attempting to illegally migrate from nearby Haiti.
The dead were among a large group of migrants on a vessel that collided with a Turks and Caicos police marine patrol boat around 9:40 p.m. Monday, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police said in a press release.
Police said the crew of the marine patrol boat was trying to intercept the migrant vessel as it approached land in the North West Point area of Turks and Caicos. That’s when the two vessels collided and several of the Haitians fell into the water.
The Turks and Caicos crew, with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, rescued 64 adults — 41 men and 23 women — from the water.
Police caught another 16 men on land in North Point, according to the press release.
Authorities say there may have been more people in the group and a search will resume at dawn on Wednesday.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those who have lost their lives today,” Kendall Grant, acting commissioner of the Turks and Caicos police, said in a statement. “We were hoping for the best. Unfortunately, we are now dealing with a tragedy. It is unclear how many irregular migrants were on board the vessel.”
The tragedy is the latest in a worsening Haitian migration crisis that has affected islands in the Caribbean as well as South and Central America, along with Mexico and the U.S. The Turks and Caicos are a a British dependent chain located 736 miles south of Florida and 136 miles from the northern coast of Haiti, and is a popular location for Haitians fleeing violence and political stability at home and hoping to get to the U.S.
Since mid-September, more than 11,000 Haitians have been repatriated from seven countries back to Haiti, according to the International Organization for Migration. This includes two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights that arrived from the U.S. on Tuesday and one on Friday, which together returned about 129 Haitians including families.
Error! Filename not specified.A sailboat floats in the shallow water off Card Sound Road in Key Largo Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. The U.S. Border Patrol said 61 migrants from Haiti were on the vessel. U.S. Border Patrol
Last week, a large group of 63 Haitian migrants arrived off the coast of a remote area of Key Largo on a sailboat. Those individuals are currently in custody at ICE’s Broward Transitional Center, immigration lawyers in Miami say.
David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.
Senators and US officials are still working to ensure return of Ohio hostages in Haiti
(WTRF) — Senators are still fighting to bring the missionaries abducted overseas back home. Two missionaries are back safe but others remain hostages.
We’ve been waiting for the return of the rest of the missionaries for six weeks now. Many of them are from Ohio. But there’s still no sign of 15 of them.
Meanwhile in the states, the FBI and State Department are trying to bring them home.
Senator Rob Portman says he’s working closely with the State Department and promises to stay personally involved. The Assistant Secretary of State is in daily connection with people on the ground.
I just urge the kidnappers to let these people go, these good people go who are trying to help the people of Haiti. I believe the US government has this at the top of their agenda, but we’ve go to get this resolved.
Sen. Rob Portman – OH – (R)
In the meantime, people are praying for the missionaries and their safe release to authorities.
My Group Can Save Haiti. Biden Is Standing in Our Way.
Dec. 1, 2021
NY Times PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — On the streets of Port-au-Prince in February, demonstrators demanded that the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, step down because he had overstayed his elected term. His administration had dissolved Parliament after failing to hold elections, and he had illegally packed the judiciary and electoral commissions. Armed gangs, acting with his support, massacred protesters and terrorized poor and powerless citizens. Government agencies were a shambles, as they have been for years.
With the United States and other countries providing unstinting support for Mr. Moïse, Haitian civil organizations realized that the only way Haiti would be saved was if they saved it.
That month, groups representing unions, professional associations, farmers’ alliances, human rights and diaspora organizations, Voodoo groups and churches formed the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. I am one of 13 commissioners.
To reach beyond the political class and our own circles, we consulted Haitians of every political stripe, professional background, religious affiliation and social class to reach a broad consensus through compromise that would provide us with the authority to create a Haitian-led solution.
Facing no perfect alternatives to a corrupt, illegitimate government that rules by decree, we believe the country’s best hope is a political transition in which inclusion provides legitimacy, leading to free elections. We can create a free, secure, democratic Haiti on our own, but we need the United States and other nations to abandon the status quo and back the work we’ve been engaged in for months.
We established a modest headquarters in a small room in Hôtel la Réserve in Port-au-Prince, where we met protesters, business leaders and representatives of the ruling party alike. We used Zoom and WhatsApp to talk with Haitians in other cities and with the Haitian diaspora. We consulted hundreds of people and organizations representing millions of Haitians.
Then events overtook our deliberations.
In July, Mr. Moïse was assassinated. The country was in shock. With disagreement about who would serve as interim head of state, opposition politicians quickly approached the commission to discuss a transitional government. That day, the U.S. Embassy tweeted its support for Mr. Moïse’s acting prime minister, Claude Joseph.
The commission worked with new urgency. We had already posted our draft accord online and opened it for public comment. Now we brought several hundred people together to work on it.
Yet meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy tweeted an extraordinary statement from a group of ambassadors that anointed Ariel Henry as acting prime minister and asked him to form a government.
On Aug. 30, we unveiled a blueprint for creating a transitional government backed by many political parties and sectors of Haitian society that had never before reached consensus.
It proposes an interim government whose members, in the absence of elections, will be nominated by various sectors to legitimately represent Haitians. There would be a president of the transition and head of government, as well as a representative body that can check executive power. It sets goals for strengthening institutions ahead of elections, working with many capable, well-intentioned civil servants who yearn to be able to do their jobs effectively.
It contains provisions that guard against self-interest, for instance, preventing commission members from holding leadership positions in the transitional government. The accord, which now has more than 900 signatories from groups representing millions of Haitians, includes participants who disagree with one another, ensuring diverse points of view.
Ariel Henry, Haiti’s acting prime minister, addressing the United Nations General Assembly via video in September. His proposal for new elections lacks sufficient reforms.Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mr. Henry, the unelected, de facto prime minister, quickly proposed a rival planthat would consolidate all power of the interim government in his hands. It focuses on quick elections without sufficient reform to make them credible or ensure wide participation. And most of its supporters represent groups that are already aligned with and benefiting from the existing corrupt, predatory and failing system.
We pushed forward, even as some people related to the talks were killed or forced into hiding by gangs and commissioners were threatened. Armed men interrupted our meetings twice.
Still, we were able to hold substantive and moving conversations. Regardless of their backgrounds, people had identified the problems of massive corruption and impunity for government officials. Justice was a key demand. Most people agreed that Haiti has grown more unequal and far more violent and that basic security was urgent. They agreed on the need to find a solution among Haitians without international intervention. In these ways, Haitians were already unified.
This week we are naming the members of the National Transition Council, which is expected to select an interim president and head of government. This should lead to a negotiation for the departure of Mr. Henry, who said he would step down if not wanted.
Haitians need the United States and other countries to shift their support to the commission’s democratic process — in which Mr. Henry is free to participate. The best solution for our country’s complex and overlapping problems is for Haitians to build a more inclusive, stable and nonviolent political system, a functional democracy.
Perhaps the Biden administration and other foreign leaders feel they are doing what’s best for Haiti by standing behind Mr. Henry. They are actually standing in the way of what’s right: letting Haitians save our own country.
Monique Clesca (@moniclesca) is a journalist based in Port-au-Prince, a former U.N. official and a member of the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis.
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