Haiti Missionaries Describe Dramatic Escape From Kidnappers
The 12 missionaries who were freed from captivity in Haiti last week had staged a dramatic escape on Wednesday night, making their way past guards and travelling on foot for about 10 miles while carrying two small children, their missionary organization said on Monday.
“They found a way to open the door that was closed and blocked, filed silently to the path that they had chosen to follow and quickly left the place that they were held, even though numerous guards were close by,” Weston Showalter, the spokesman for Christian Aid Ministries, said at a news briefing at the organization’s home office in Ohio, recounting the story for the first time.
The account of the escape comes solely from the U.S. missionary group. The police and government officials in Haiti did not respond to comments on the incident. The FBI expressed gratitude for the safe release of the hostages but did not release any further information.
The ordeal began two months ago when the group was kidnapped by a gang called 400 Mawozo in a neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince after visiting an orphanage. Gang members surrounded its van, penning the missionaries in with two vehicles, and then took them to a small house. The missionaries were held in a small room, about ten by 12 feet, Mr Showalter said.
He said that the group that escaped included a married couple, a 10-month-old baby, a 3-year-old child, a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy, four men and two women. Five other members of the group had been released during the past month for days, Mr Showalter said; the missionaries prayed that God would reveal the right moment for their escape.
Twice when they planned to flee, God told them to wait, he said. But on Wednesday night, the missionaries put on their shoes and packed water in their clothes. They used a mountain as a landmark and followed the light of the moon and “the sure guidance of the stars,” he said.
As daylight broke, they found someone to help them make a phone call. Later that day, they were on a Coast Guard flight to Florida.
“They were finally free,” Mr Showalter said through tears.
It was unclear how the missionaries escaped their guards after weeks of being held captive under close watch.
The organization said that an unspecified ransom had been provided but did not describe the money as leading directly to the hostages’ freedom. Instead, David N. Troyer, general director of Christian Aid Ministries, said that “after many days of waiting and no action on the part of the kidnappers, God worked in a miraculous way to enable the hostages to escape.”
Some people, who were not identified, “provided funds to pay a ransom and allow the negotiation process to continue,” Mr Troyer said. “We are not able to say anything further in respect to these negotiations.”
A State Department spokesperson would not comment on the episode but noted that the U.S. government did not pay ransoms. A person familiar with the negotiations said a third party paid the ransom, not the U.S. government.
Pierre Espérance, a prominent human rights defender in Haiti, said the missionaries’ description of their experience was very unusual — the payment of a ransom has resolved mass kidnappings in the past.
Kidnapping has become the main security threat in Haiti over the past year as the country slipped deeper into an economic and political crisis. Faced with a power vacuum after the death of President Jovenel Moïse in July, and with a rapidly shrinking legal economy, gangs in the capital of Port-au-Prince have increasingly resorted to kidnapping for ransom to finance themselves, targeting even pastors in their churches and doctors fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
The gang that kidnapped the Christian Aid Ministries group also held other hostages in the same building, Mr Showalter said, and the missionaries tried to talk with them through the walls or share food and water with them. The group sang, prayed, and recited Scripture verses throughout the days and nights.
The captors provided “large amounts of baby food” for the minor children, he said, and the adults received small portions of food, including things like half a hard-boiled egg, or rice and beans with a fish sauce. They had limited access to clean drinking water and some hygiene items, but the water they received to bathe in was “severely contaminated,” he said, and some people developed “festering sores.”
The hostages spoke to the gang leader on several occasions, he said and warned him of God’s eventual judgment if he and the gang members continued their behaviour.
“Although they were threatened on multiple occasions and even wondered if death was near in some cases, none of the hostages was physically hurt or abused by the kidnappers,” he said.
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