SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A group of 17 American missionaries, including children, were kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident.
According to a message from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, the missionaries were on their way home from the construction of an orphanage.
“This is a special prayer alert,” the one-minute message said. “Pray that the gang members will come to repentance.”
The message said the mission’s field director was working with the US embassy, and that the field director’s family and another unidentified person remained at the ministry’s base while everyone who visited the orphanage was abducted.
No other details were immediately available.
A US government spokesman said they were aware of reports of abductions.
“The welfare and safety of American citizens abroad is one of the State Department’s top priorities,” the spokesperson said, declining further remarks.
Haiti is once again struggling with a spike in gang-related kidnappings, which subsided after President Jovenel Mosse was fatally shot at his private residence on July 7, and in southwest Haiti in August. The 7.2-magnitude earthquake followed and killed more than 2,200 people. .
According to officials, the gang has demanded ransom ranging from a few hundred dollars to a million dollars.
Last month, a deaf man was murdered and his wife abducted in front of a church in the capital of Port-au-Prince, one of dozens who have been abducted in recent months.
According to a report released last month by the United Nations Unified Office in Haiti, known as BNUH, at least 328 victims of kidnappings were reported to Haiti’s national police in the first eight months of 2021, while in 2020 A total of 234 victims were reported.